


Black Eyes And Paper Cut Smile

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Corvo is numb, Daud's a ghost, Death, F/M, High Chaos (Dishonored), High Chaos Corvo Attano, Low Chaos Daud (Dishonored), M/M, Unrequited, hey anon your prompt started an AU hope you're happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: He had ghosts. Learnt to live with them. The Heart in his hand and her voice in his ear, he moved through Dunwall on his quest for vengeance. There was a hole in the world, and it lived inside him.eBook availablehereplaylisthere





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt: ["kill me" + "haunt me"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582677/chapters/40244651)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is another terrible idea. Merry Christmas!

As Corvo threw Daud’s body over the parapet, as he made sure that the last thing Daud’s lightless eyes saw was the statue of the Empress he’d murdered, the symbol of the city he’d so callously condemned to death and ruin, there was a part of him that knew that he would never find satisfaction. Not in this moment, not in any other. He looked forward to plunging Pathmaker into Havelock’s chest and a bullet in the back of Burrows’ head, but none of it would bring her back. None of it would rewind the six months he had spent in agony, doubting after a while even his own recollection of the moment.

He hadn’t killed her.

Or had he?

He had ghosts. Learnt to live with them. The Heart in his hand and her voice in his ear, he moved through Dunwall on his quest for vengeance. There was a hole in the world, and it lived inside him.

The first night he heard another voice, deep and strained, he refused to believe it. The second, he turned on the narrow cot and screwed shut his eyes. The third, he sat up.

_Hello, Corvo._

Another ghost, then. Fine.

“Daud.”

*

_What are you going to do with Havelock, and those who poisoned you?_

“If you must speak, don’t ask questions you already know the answers to.” Corvo would depart for Kingsparrow Island in the morning. He’d collapsed after freeing Callista, the poison still ravaging his insides. Piero and Sokolov had administered what elixir they could spare, and the worst was finally purged.

_Do I? Well. I suppose my example will do. And Lady Boyle’s. And the Pendletons’. And how could I forget our dearly departed High Overseers Campbell and Martin. Will they require your approval for the next one, I wonder._

“I suppose you are my punishment.” The moon was casting its shadows across the river. Perhaps, after this, it would swallow up everything.

_Ah, but what if you are mine?_

Corvo lay back down. He did his best, these days, never to wonder what was waiting in the shadows, anyhow.

*

The ghost, at least, did him the courtesy of remaining unseen. No dead eyes to evade, no path to be blocked. Even if it meant Daud had the advantage over him, in some things, even in death: his actions could not be hidden from a ghost any more than from the Heart or the Outsider himself. And just as the arbiter of the Void, Corvo simply assumed that the Knife of Dunwall… was always watching.

There was no pretending, no denying it, no dancing around it. Things were what they were. Corvo wondered whether there might be a bargain he could strike with the Void. He wondered what price he would have to pay.

When Corvo escorted Emily back to Dunwall Tower, flanked by Overseers and Watch Guards who had brandished their swords at him but then had bowed when Emily had stepped out of his shadow, her clothes were still flecked with Havelock’s blood. Her hand in Corvo’s, trembled. The Heart was breaking in his chest, and there was a low voice in his ear.

_And what will become of your Empire now?_

When Corvo watched as prison guards led Burrows to the gallows, there was a grunt.

_I would have liked to put a piece of sharp metal in his eye._

“A bullet will do,” Corvo responded lowly. Curnow, standing next to him, sent him a curious glance.

On Kingsparrow Island, Jessamine had shown him the way to their little girl. Daud had told him that his form was lacking. Corvo had clenched his jaw behind the mask and uttered not a sound. Pendleton had died cackling that everyone had known that he’d been screwing the Empress, cackling and drowning in a swarm of rats. There’d been as little left of him as his dignity had always been worth. Corvo had turned on his heel, silence following him. He felt the Heart’s sorrow, even as he could barely comprehend it. He wanted to try. He knew that, eight months ago, he would have tried.

Eight months ago, he wouldn’t have needed to. Eight months ago, there were no ghosts to hold him accountable. Love had been alive, and death a certainty of a different kind.

*

 _You are not the same_ , she had whispered that first night.

“I can’t be.”

 _You’re her father_.

“I’m her Protector now.”

*

Martin had done him a favour, carrying out the sentence himself; or, at the very least, had saved him a bullet.

 _Good riddance_.

Corvo went through Martin’s pockets, and found the little black book — he was surprised Havelock had let him keep it. Approval, he thought. Then, discarded the notion.

Even with the advent of the Plague, Jessamine had not lost hope; even as Corvo grew warier every day. He was the Empress’ bodyguard, he was always aware of the ever-present danger. But there had been times of peace, and even of joy. Emily’s birth had been the happiest day of his life; even as his heart found one more place to harden itself against the inevitable fear of loss, against the certainty that there was now one more he would die to protect, one more life to safeguard that was infinitely more important than his own.

He hadn’t wanted to go, but Burrows had _insisted_.

As Havelock fell into the depths off his stolen lighthouse, his stolen regency, Corvo wished for a moment that he could have sent Burrows down with him. Patience, he reminded himself, as Emily clung to his coat.

“I’m going to be Empress now,” she announced, still looking down at the waves that had swallowed Havelock and carried him away.

His ghosts were silent.

*

“What about the Whalers?” he asked, standing next to Emily’s throne. His hand strayed not towards his sword, but to his belt, to the clip that usually held the mask. He wished he would wear it, even as he shouldn’t have worried. No-one dared come close enough to hear.

 _Thomas will try. It won’t work._ _They’ll be gone before the Fugue._

“I drowned one,” Corvo murmured.

No answer.

*

 _The last thing the Empress felt was his blad_ e _._ The Heart pumped slowly in Corvo’s hand as he stood on the cliffs above the river. _And now, he is a part of you_.

“He isn’t,” Corvo bit out. “He’s with the Void, and with death, where he belongs. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”

_Except you._

“He cannot hurt me.”

_Won’t he try?_

“It’s of no consequence.”

 _Corvo…_ Her voice was filled with sorrow.

He knew she believed his mind was broken. But perhaps the trouble was that it had never been so easy for his head to govern his heart.

“Emily is safe,” he said. He’d said it so often now. “She’s safe.”

She would never be safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gonna post more as I go along... next chapter will likely be from Daud's pov  
> any good??? let me know! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stepping from one world into the other was strange and uneven, and Daud supposed he knew what it felt like for someone to step on his grave. To dance on it, perhaps; only that Corvo Attano seemed to have lost his canter. Daud had heard stories, coming out of Karnaca and then Dunwall Tower, of the whirlwind, the boy who’d won the Blade Verbena at sixteen, the young man’d been drafted into the Serkonan Guard and then shipped off to Gristol, of the man who took on three in the practice yard and won without once breaking his guard. That man was still there, underneath that coat and mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More terrible ideas.

Stepping from one world into the other was strange and uneven, and Daud supposed he knew what it felt like for someone to step on his grave. To dance on it, perhaps; only that Corvo Attano seemed to have lost his canter. Daud had heard stories, coming out of Karnaca and then Dunwall Tower, of the whirlwind, the boy who’d won the Blade Verbena at sixteen, the young man’d been drafted into the Serkonan Guard and then shipped off to Gristol, of the man who took on three in the practice yard and won without once breaking his guard. That man was still there, underneath that coat and mask.

Daud had seen what Coldridge did to those trapped inside it. He could only guess what it would do to innocents. Had Corvo doubted himself? Had his memories bent to the scaffold of torture? Had he dreamt, imagined his own blade stilling the Empress’ heart? Had he felt her blood on his hands?

Watching Rulfio and Galia drag Attano out of the dinghy and onto the muddy embankment, Daud had known that it was to be his last day.

Daud had known Thomas was staring at him from where he was standing guard by the broken window. He’d known that the others were whispering, wondering.

He had known Corvo was coming. Leaving him in a hole in the ground wasn’t going to stop a man like that, not even half dead from poison and betrayal. If he lived, if he made it through these next few hours, there was nothing that would stand between him and a blade at Daud’s throat except a garrison of Whalers who were all secretly doubting their master’s wits. This was the end of the Knife of Dunwall.

Everyone had known.

Falling to his death from the top of the house, Daud had seen the statue; the Empress, carrying her orb and sceptre. Her crown, a burden and a promise. Curious, he remembered thinking in his last moments. In all that flood water and muck and grime, and she remained as she’d always been: gleaming marble. The untouchable Empress, watching over her city.

She’d not been so untouchable, after all.

He felt the Heart’s presence in the Void when it spoke to Attano, and he felt it tremble with hatred whenever he was near him. ‘Near,’ then, was a deception: he was a spirit of the Void, a shadow of his former self, and Attano could not see him. Could hear him, yes, could sense him, perhaps, perceive him, but his eyes never sought Daud’s nor did they evade him.

Daud had known he’d pay for what he’d done. He couldn’t have known it would be… this. Bound to the Royal Protector by the Void, in and out of either realm. It was taking less effort to control it now, to pull himself through the space that wasn’t. There were still no stars in the Void, but whales. Daud could hear them sing, now.

The Outsider had only spoken to him once.

_Are you afraid, old friend? Of death?_

Daud had been too transfixed by the blood running from his fingers to reply.

_Suppose there is something more frightening than death._

That had gotten Daud’s attention.

_You make an eloquent plea, for a man with innocent blood on his hands. It's a shame Corvo didn’t know the real story, isn't it? How in these last days you passed through Coldridge Prison like a shadow, dared the tangles of Dunwall's underworld and walked out unscathed; outwitted one of the greatest witches in a generation, all with consummate care and skill. How you saved Emily Kaldwin, daughter of the Empress, first of her name, and no one will ever know. How Daud the legendary assassin spent his last days doing whatever it took to save Emily Kaldwin. A story never to be told. And you left the ending up to Corvo? That's courage. You make your own choice, and accept the price._

“The price?,” Daud had gestured. His throat slashed, he had not been able to speak.

_Consequences._

*

The girl was on the throne now, and Daud thought of the black-eyed bastard’s words. Corvo had not known the story of Delilah when he’d come bearing down on Daud with the force of the Void and a man broken by time and fate.

 _A story never to be told_.

Daud had thought of it, just for a moment, as he made his plea. He asked for his life, and wondered. A bargaining chip, hidden up his sleeve as his hand cradled the weeping wound in his side where Corvo’s blade had struck him. With the gifts of the Void and cold fury in his heart, Corvo had outrun him. The Whalers had done their best, putting themselves between the Masked Assassin and their master, but Daud had commanded them away.

It should never have been their fight. He deserved death. His people didn’t.

*

On Kingsparrow Island, Daud saw a guard rounding a corner just as Attano blinked down to gather up the weapons of another man he’d killed. Nearly, he called out to warn him.

At the last moment, he bit his tongue.

The officer lost his head to Corvo’s blade, and something stirred in the Void inside him.

 _Your posture is growing lazy_ , he grated at length.

Attano did not acknowledge him, but the tension in his shoulders belied his indifference.

*

The last of Burrows’ friends taken to Coldridge, most more alive than dead, and the Loyalist Conspiracy squashed, the Royal Protector settled into his role as _de facto_ Regent. He would never name himself such, that Daud could tell without speaking to him — not that they _talked_.

Corvo, usually encumbered by complaints and looks because he spoke too little — “ _can_ he speak?” one nobleman asked condescendingly, and Daud found himself staring over at them, askance and with disgust — now earned those glances because he appeared to speak to himself. Only, sometimes he would speak tenderly, under his breath; other times he would bite out a retort so vicious that it startled young guards in hearing distance.

The Lord Protector’s ghosts knew which were for them.

 _The last thing the Empress felt was his blade_ , Daud heard the Heart say to Corvo one night, as he held himself on the cusp between their world and his. The Heart was different: it was a vessel, it cradled the Empress’ spirit like a bell its tolling. The soul therein could see into nothing, could appear in the blue hues of the Void, but she was tethered to her Heart. Daud could do little more in terms of influencing the world of the living — or, come to think of it, the world of the dead — but he was not bound to an object that Attano had to carry on his person at all times. Daud rather suspected that, if that had been the case, he would have found himself at the bottom of the Wrenhaven about ten minutes into his ghostly existence.

It had taken Attano three nights to accept the unacceptable, as Daud himself would deem it. Daud wondered: would Attano go and seek the Abbey’s advice in exorcising the Knife of Dunwall? It seemed rather impractical, at this stage. Perhaps there was a ritual? Granny Rags might have been able to help, had Attano not drowned her in her own cauldron and freed Slackjaw on a whim. Daud had not seen this with his own eyes; he had been shown the tableau in the Void, on his way to the Outsider.

Just for a moment, he had believed he might not be dead; that he might have survived. But then the Outsider had appeared and the blood had come running out. The Outsider had almost smiled at the sight, for reasons that were only his to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corvo: skewers guards  
> Daud, recently moidered by that same sword: yo your form sucks
> 
> find me on tumblr, I'm [@screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse](https://screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse.tumblr.com)  
> also I have a new twitter: [@grumblewhale](https://twitter.com/grumblewhale)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Too soon the caterwaul of the Ancient Music permeated the air, made it too thick to breathe. Corvo stumbled, crashing his injured shoulder into the wall of the building. He let out a grunt and pushed away, forcing himself to stay on his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MORE BAD IDEAS!

“The interregnum is over!” the newspapers titled triumphantly the day Emily ascended the throne of the Empire of the Isles. “Peace can now be restored to Dunwall, and the reconstruction can begin!”

And yet, still plague-ridden and the entire former financial quarter flooded, Dunwall had little time for peace. Of course, the aristocracy believed that they merely had to wait for the Cure to arrive to return to their lives of complacency and derision for the poor. They could not have known that the shadows in the windows had deepened, that there was something new lurking in the dark. They had spent the weeks and months after Corvo’s escape from Coldridge in fear of the Masked Assassin, and still so many had failed to put two and two together. At the Boyle’s last party, he had heard so many of them speculate as to the identity of the spectre moving through Dunwall’s underworld. Increasingly, he had heard the name of Daud — some to suggest that he had been the one help him escape, for reasons of his own. Corvo had snorted behind his mask, and heads had turned before one moved, uncomfortably, to a different corner of the room or formed a tighter circle so as to exclude him from the conversation without directly telling him to make himself scarce.

With the death of Havelock and his co-conspirators, the nobles of Dunwall believed themselves safe: they had had nothing to do with either the Empress’ death or her daughter’s abduction, after all, and they had simply gone along with Burrows’ suggestions in Parliament to safeguard the Empire, _obviously_. When the truth had come out, Burrows’ snivelling voice carrying across the city while the propaganda officer twitched and bled on the ground at Corvo’s feet, they had hurried to profess their shame and regret at _being betrayed_ by one they had thought they could trust.

And now, it was over, they crowed.

What fools. He was always watching.

Corvo stood silently by Emily’s throne by day, escorted her to her lessons and listened to her tutors drone on about the War of the Four Crowns, the Seven Strictures, and the five pillars of the Academy of Natural Philosophy. He watched as Emily drew paintings of him and shadows and rats, and of her mother in front of a crimson sky. He burnt the one she’d drawn of Custis and Morgan at the Golden Cat, and kept the one of him looming above a burning city. He told himself it served as a reminder not to let it come this far ever again. It was, certainly, not a wish to see fire cleanse this town of misery.

But it would, if he found another man like Burrows setting their sights on Emily’s throne, he would not be too late this time. He would tear them limb from limb before they knew what hour the clock had struck that spelt their demise. He’d recruited those of Burrows’ agents that had shown the appropriate amount of fear — when he killed the one that he knew had delivered the plans of Dunwall Tower to the dead drop in front of them. The others were in Coldridge, with a view of the spot where their former Spymaster had died. The cell Corvo had been in would remain empty, by imperial decree, a reminder to the guards who’d lived that day that mercy was a gift best savoured. Corvo had since learnt that Daud, of all people, had saved those who had helped him escape from execution. An attempt at saving his own soul, perhaps? It certainly couldn’t have been approval. Why Daud had been in Coldridge in the first place, Corvo could not tell — the following pages were missing from the Knife of Dunwall’s journals, as were some others. Entries on his lieutenants, and the final weeks of his life; entries on past contracts and certain Whalers’ origins. Perhaps that fabled _Thomas_ had extracted them.

Corvo wondered if he might be found.

When he wondered so out loud, the cold air of the rooftop behind him stirred. He almost turned, but he knew there would be nothing to see.

 _You’ll never find him_.

“I found you.”

*

“Emily is safe,” he reassured the Heart one night. Another night. He had just left the Tower to travel to the Estate District. She didn’t like it when he spent his nights skulking around on rooftops, eavesdropping, always watching. Deciding who to trust.

 _You nearly dropped her_ , a voice rumbled near his shoulder, and this time Corvo did turn. The Heart shook in his grasp, but there was nothing there but shadows. Could she see him?

“Get away from us,” Corvo hissed.

_There’s a patrol down there you missed._

Before Corvo leaned over the edge of the roof to check, he thought one of the shadows might have moved.

*

It was not merely the aristocrats of Dunwall who ought to fear for their lives, however. The gangs knew well enough who and what was stalking through alleyways at night. News of the Whalers’ leader’s end had travelled fast and far, but it was not the Knife of Dunwall they had once been so afraid of. It was the wisp of smoke that followed the footsteps of his killer. The Hatters and the Eels, the Bottle Street Gang… they knew not to go too near Dunwall Tower. But over the months after Emily’s coronation, they ventured out into the surrounding districts again, and took up their dealings with new fences, new traders and smugglers. Slackjaw, compelled by something resembling gratitude, even if its effects were barely distinguishable from the aspect of terror still chasing his dreams when he closed his eyes and thought of Granny Rags, screaming of revenge and murder, kept his lads sequestered in the distillery for a while longer than most of them liked. Some called him a coward. He found their heads in the market displays out in Bloodox Way a few days later.

The Hatters, as was their wont, were the least impressed with the Masked Assassin’s work. Their brash voices sounded through the streets by the Riverfront, taunting the Eels as though not a day had passed. The Geezer’s death had not been a surprise — the fact that the old man had found someone to gas the entire factory, however, was.

_He died hacking up a lung._

Corvo did not answer.

_So will you, if you keep diving into the river at every opportunity._

At this, Corvo tilted his head, still watching the Hatters below.

_I heard about what you did on Kaldwin Bridge. And I_ _saw_ _you last week._

“Didn’t think you cared,” Corvo returned. It was the first he’d spoken to Daud in two weeks. Not that it had kept the apparition from making a nuisance of itself.

_I don’t. Imagine you die by drowning yourself, who do I end up haunting next?_

Corvo shrugged. “Lurk?”

 _Don’t say her name_.

“I haven’t found her, either.”

 _And you won’t. She’s too clever for you_.

“Didn’t say that about Thomas.”

Silence. At least that confirmed that she was alive. Another surprise.

*

Corvo made a point to stay away from Holger Square until a new High Overseer had been chosen. Campbell’s erstwhile secretary had been leading the Office of the High Overseer in the wake of Martin’s death, whose brief tenure had been struck from the records of the Order. The selection process was slow, and Corvo was not expecting for the Feast of Painted Kettles to be called long before the Fugue.

The Warfare Overseers patrolling the city — against Corvo’s advice, but according to Emily’s wishes — were still carrying the Music Boxes. It was one night during the Month of Songs that two of them surprised Corvo as he searched an abandoned building for a shrine that had once been there.

They called for their Brothers, and within moments, he found himself surrounded by four more, aiming down their sights at him.

_Good luck._

He Blinked.

Using the wall as a ramp, he ran up, gaining height and leverage, and dropped down on the first Overseer he could reach, who collapsed underneath him with a cry. His pistol went off as he fell, and Corvo would have hoped that it had hit one of the other Overseers, if the sound of a ricochet hadn’t instilled a familiar kind of dread in him.

Not a second later, searing pain lanced through his shoulder, and he gritted his teeth but did not flinch. He retracted his blade from the Overseer’s skull and disappeared in a flash.

“He’s been struck!” one of the Order cried.

“He didn’t seem to notice,” warned another. He died next, a bolt sticking out of his eye before he could start winding the instrument strapped to his chest.

But his Brother could, and too soon the caterwaul of the Ancient Music permeated the air, made it too thick to breathe. Corvo stumbled, crashing his injured shoulder into the wall of the building. He let out a grunt and pushed away, forcing himself to stay on his feet.

“Get him!”

Corvo gripped the handle of his sword more tightly.

*

Minutes later, he hauled himself over the ledge of a window, inside another abandoned apartment. He was panting, bleeding, and the Void inside him drained to the quick. He fumbled with the pouches on his belt, dredging up two phials filled blue and red. He emptied both, and grasped for another of the latter to pour its contents over the cuts and scrapes on his hands. Always visible, they could not afford to scar. He scoffed when he found the wrist strap obscuring the mark nearly torn.He unwrapped it and ripped it off, the stitches attaching it to his coat giving way far too easily. He needed a new tailor.

But first, now, he needed a moment to breathe.

He used the ruined strap of fabric for a makeshift sling; his left shoulder throbbing. Calls rose up from the streets outside, Overseers arriving to help their brethren and searching the area. Corvo would not be able to leave before they had moved on from his quarter. Once he had dispatched the second Overseer carrying a Music Box, he had bent time to take care of the others, and he’d felt his mark burn and flicker as he went past his limits. It would take some time until he could reach for the Void again without it bringing him to his knees. He needed to catch his breath, to rest, and for the patrols to give up their search.

Just a few minutes. Drawing in the musty air around him, he cast another glance towards the door to make sure the apartment was barricaded properly and no-one would be able to get through, neither Overseer nor Weeper.

He let his head fall back against the crates he was leaning against, and drew one leg under him. Just a few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Daud's going to experience some... feelins. He's not a fan.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They feared Attano, but they still detested him. They underestimated him. And one day, Daud was sure, they would suffer for this mistake. He smirked. He wouldn’t mind watching that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Daud has feelins.  
> Daud: I don't like it.  
> The Void: No-one likes it.

“With respect, Your Majesty—”

“We simply cannot allow—”

“An increase in taxes would plainly—”

“Enough.”

A hush fell over the room as the Lord Protector stepped forward to be at the Empress’ side. He glared darkly at the members of her Council, who had been falling over themselves to persuade her not to raise the burdens placed on their estates and those of the other members of Parliament.

Daud wondered how many of them had seen his mask glinting in the dark. And still they dared to dissent. He almost had to give them credit — if it weren’t misplaced at the doors of such selfish creatures as the upper echelons of Dunwall society. They might possess all the airs and graces of elevated rank, but their fingers were grubby and greedy for coin in the way a beggar’s never could be. Their hands _reeked_ of wealth.

They were staring at Attano now, words dying in their throats. Lord Ramsey sat back down, but there was petulance in his manner and sulking in the line of his shoulders. He held himself as a man who would gladly show the other man his place but refused to do so because he was in _polite company_. Certainly not because the man towering above them all could strike them down with one song of his blade. They feared Attano, but they still detested him. They underestimated him. And one day, Daud was sure, they would suffer for this mistake. He smirked. He wouldn’t mind watching that.

Daud had been watching Corvo, in meetings and at Court, had watched him twitch his fingers for his mask, had watched him settle into himself when he put it on at night to chase the lights and shadows across Dunwall’s rooftops.

He watched him train, watched him fight. He was as quick with his sword as he was with his pistol, and he was gone before the City Watch could send a squad.

 _One of these days, the Watch is going to start protecting the gangs,_ Daud admonished him one night. _From you_. But then, the thought of a ghost _admonishing_ the Royal Protector was a thing to be laughed at. Only, Daud had little grounds for amusement.

Attano was silent, but Daud imagined him grinning, a mirror image of the mask’s cruel merriment.

Daud, content not to be seen, frowned at Corvo when he burnt the midnight oil poring over his network’s field reports, or returned to his quarters worn out by nights of patrolling, and still seemed intent on getting no sleep at all.

 _You’re going to run yourself into the ground_.

“I’m fine.”

Daud raised a brow, not that Attano could see. If he responded to him in any way implying that Daud _cared_ about his health, he had to be dizzy with exhaustion.

 _I don’t give a rat’s ass how you’re feeling, I’m telling you you’re burning the candle at both ends. Give it another year, you’ll be of no use at all_.

“You’re a physician now?”

_Even an assassin needs rest. A lesson you don’t seem to have learnt._

“Oh, so your Whalers had a curfew?”

_Something like it._

“I don’t need sleep.”

 _Keep telling yourself that, Attano_. Daud left it there, because a stubborn man who had convinced himself that he did not need rest was not fit to argue with. Had he still any need of possessions, he would have bet ten coin that Attano had not slept more than three hours any night ever since escaping Coldridge. And whatever had been driving him then — saving Emily, destroying his enemies, the revenge that solved everything — was still carrying him through.

But it would not hold out forever.

*

Hearing of High Overseer Campbell’s broken body lying in the middle of Holger Square, the heretic’s brand burnt into the skin of his face, had not surprised Daud. The viciousness of it, perhaps. He did not fault Attano for going down that road. The path to vengeance was paved with cobbled bits of bone. At Lady Boyle’s last masquerade ball, Attano had been the life of the party; and how he’d made it out of that place that not even Daud would have been comfortable infiltrating on such a night, mask or no, he didn’t ask. He could imagine it, however. It was a bloody sort of daydream.

Daud had no doubt that it wasn’t the first blood Attano had spilt in the name of the Crown. He must have acted as the Empress’ agent before and during the Plague, eliminating threats even Burrows might not have known about. Daud wondered if Curnow had ever asked him for help in chasing down the Knife of Dunwall. But the Masked Assassin had taken Corvo Attano and hidden his face, made him as good as a mercenary. He acted to complete his mission, and he collected his reward. Daud knew that he’d ransacked the Chamber after tossing him down into the water, and taken it for what it was worth. To the victor go the spoils.

*

There was some left of who Corvo Attano might have once been, before all this. There was kindness in how he spoke to Emily, there was gentleness in how he tucked her in when the girl could persuade her governess to have someone call for the Lord Protector. Daud did not _want_ to see those things, but there were moments he could not flee; right as though the Void wanted him to witness. For his sins, he thought, and turned away when Attano picked up a book of fairy tales to read.

“Will you read to me again tomorrow?” Emily asked when he put down the book.

“You know I can’t.”

Daud cut him a glance.

“Why not?”

“Your governess should read to you, not me.”

“But then what do you do?”

“I keep you safe.”

A pause. Then, a whisper: “I miss Callista.”

“I know. Sleep, now.”

Corvo left, and finally Daud could move into the Void. He stayed there, for a while. He wouldn’t go chasing after Attano tonight.

*

He ought to have known it was inevitable.

Attano was in his study, the Heart in his hands, the low light deepening the lines of his face. Had he always looked so severe?

He tensed as Daud moved through the shadows. He seemed to be getting better at telling when Daud was there; and even where he was. Daud supposed it was as though seeing the shadows move. The Heart seized in his grasp.

 _He is here_.

“I know.”

Daud remained standing across the room, by the fire, imagining that he could still feel its heat; but the truth was he felt nothing. Not the bracing gusts coming off the river, not the sun whenever it deigned to make an appearance. He was not even sure he felt the bone-crushing cold of the Void anymore — perhaps that was inside him, now.

_How can you allow him to be?_

“I doubt there is anything I can do.”

_Have you tried?_

Attano didn’t answer.

 _The Void doesn’t take broken men,_ Daud decided to defy the silence. _Neither of us_.

 _What about empresses_ , the Heart returned. _What about her?_

Daud had no explanation. Hers was an arbitrary fate. If it was hatred that bound him to Corvo, perhaps the Void was capable of recognising love, as well. It would find a way to twist either into cruel mockery.

 _His hands did violence_ , the Heart spoke abruptly. _But there was a different dream in his heart_.

Before Daud could speak, Attano did.

“Does that mean we’re meant to forgive him for what he did?”

Daud turned away. _That’s not what that means._

*

And now, Attano was on the ground, leaning against a stack of crates in a cold, empty place, barricaded against the Plague. The Cure still had not been found. People were still dying. The city was getting smaller.

Daud peered out the window, into the streets. Overseers were organising a search, while others were gathering up the bodies of their fallen Brothers. Wolfhounds were growling and barking at the stench of the Void lingering in the air.

When he looked back at Attano, the Empress’ spirit was hovering above him, reaching out as if to fuss with his hair where it framed the mask under his coat’s hood. The fool hadn’t even taken it off. She studiously did not look in his direction. After a few minutes, her image flickered, and Daud scowled. She never usually appeared in the world this long; the Heart would not let her — or so he’d inferred from observation. He _knew_ nothing.

 _I’ll wake him if there’s trouble_ , he said.

Still, she lingered. He came closer and could hear the Heart chittering against Attano’s ribcage.

_Go. Rest._

Now, she cast him a scathing glance.

 _Not a hair on his head,_ she said darkly. Then, she vanished.

Daud sighed.

He crouched down in front of Attano. He seemed fine, considering, but it was all a matter of whether he was resting or passed out — if the latter, it would take more than an Overseer’s boot on the stairs to wake him.

To his shame, he was halfway to reaching out when Attano woke, jerking up with a start and a sharp intake of breath, as though breaking out of a nightmare. His hand was on his sword in an instant, a grunt pulled from his throat when the folding blade extended.

Even knowing that it could not hurt him, Daud reared back, the tip of the sword inches from his throat.

_Don’t be an ass, Attano!_

It was only then that he realised that Corvo could _see_ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST SIGHTING!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corvo stopped, his blade a hand away from a ghost’s unbeating heart — a ghost he had never before _seen_. He’d felt the Void stir and the shadows move, but he had never been… like this. Daud looked as he had the day he died, from what Corvo could tell: the same red coat, the same white shirt underneath, curiously pristine but for the collar. It was drenched in blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter, my writing year of 2018 concludes! I've written many, many words this year, and during good and not-so-good times, it's kept me sane. Corvo and Daud, although their romance arc in assassins don't take sides has concluded, continue to moider me with their walnut-ness no matter their chaos level, and this story is a welcome exploration.
> 
> I wish you all a very Happy New Year, all the love and happiness you can stand for 2019, and many, many excellent stories to read and tell.
> 
> Much love,  
> grumble

Corvo stopped, his blade a hand away from a ghost’s unbeating heart — a ghost he had never before _seen_. He’d felt the Void stir and the shadows move, but he had never been… like this. Daud looked as he had the day he died, from what Corvo could tell: the same red coat, the same white shirt underneath, curiously pristine but for the collar. It was drenched in blood. He wasn’t fully there, not opaque, there was no illusion of him being corporeal. But he was undeniably visible, and currently staring at him as though the same realisation had completely stopped him in his tracks.

 _It’s been months_ , Daud’s ghost observed somewhat uselessly.

“Don’t remind me,” Corvo growled through his teeth, flinching when he moved to fold and sheath his blade and suddenly the awareness of his own body came rushing back. The bullet wound in his shoulder, no worse than he’d had before but still biting into his flesh. The grazes on his hands were healing, but still burning, and even just twenty minutes on the cold hard ground had set all of him to aching. He had to get up and moving soon, ere his muscles turned stiff.

Daud, still barely two feet away, still watching him, quite as if he’d _forgotten_ what it was like to be caught out staring, scowled.

 _You need to learn to pace yourself_ , he rumbled, and Corvo wondered if now was the time to inform him that he was not taking advice from a ghost, much less that of the man who was to blame for all this. All the misery, all the loss, all the chaos.

“Your point?” Corvo nonetheless challenged as he leveraged himself up into a crouch.

 _You’re burning through Void energy every time you use your powers. You need to learn to conserve it, to let it in._ Daud tilted his head. _You’re still fighting it. Give that up. Once you know to control it properly, being caught by a Music Box will still stop you in your tracks, but you’ll be back up and fighting without nearly passing out_.

Corvo declined reminding him of the bullet still lodged in his shoulder, too occupied gritting his teeth when he stood up and straightened. He was lucky it hadn’t shattered his clavicle, or he’d have spent the past half hour bleeding out.

Once he stood up straight, he sighed.

“Is there a handbook I can pick up?” he asked sarcastically, adjusting his improvised sling to stabilise his arm.

Daud was quiet for a moment.

 _I could teach you_.

Corvo stilled.

“No.”

He was not going to make himself the lab rat for a dead man’s attempt at redemption. The Void, Corvo thought, was welcome to let Daud’s discordant spirit wander its emptiness forever.

*

The perversity of the situation was that now that Daud was visible, he was also more valuable. On the way back to Dunwall Tower, he positioned himself so as to give Corvo directions as to where to go and which alleys to avoid due to patrols, all without the effort of having to speak. That, at least, Corvo appreciated. Of all the things that haunted him most about that day, was that Daud had never said a single word. Silently, he’d grabbed Jessamine by the throat and cleaved her in half, and he’d vanished without so much as a look back at Corvo except to make sure he was still down.

For months, Corvo had had nothing but those memories to remind him that any confession they laid before him to sign his life away was a lie; that it had been the man in the red coat. Corvo had known that it could only have been the Knife of Dunwall then, even though the Loyalists had done their best to pretend they had no clue who could have possibly bested him and murdered the Empress. They’d promised him that, after Burrows, the true Empress killer would be the next target on his list — as if there were still work to be done in finding out _who_. And to think, it had been the first time Corvo had ever found himself in the company of the infamous Knife of Dunwall, much less face to face with him.

The second time, Corvo had ended the Whalers’ reign of terror over the city, and the Knife’s life with it. But even after, Daud’s dying words had still followed him. About power, about feeling powerful; about the Void and his dealings with the Outsider. There’d been something in how he had laid out his own role in all this, in everything that had happened in the past ten years or so, certainly since the beginning of Jessamine’s reign. The culling, when it had begun in earnest: Dunwall’s aristocrats decimating one another in the name of greed and influence. ‘Cut one noble down, another takes their place,’ Corvo remembered listening to one of Daud’s audiographs in the Chamber. ‘One more job shouldn’t have mattered. But she was different. No-one should have to kill an Empress.’

And yet, Daud still had. And now he possessed the nerve to offer his help; help in controlling something that, had he ever found himself afflicted with a conscience, Corvo would have never had to contend with. The Void, the Outsider, these ill-gotten _gifts_. Corvo wondered whether he should find strength in them, when every time he clenched his fist, he only felt the hollow inside him growing; as empty as the comfort of knowing he had taken the life of the man who had forever destroyed his happiness.

*

To Corvo’s chagrin, Daud’s changed… circumstances, also meant that he was more difficult to ignore. In council meetings, in Corvo’s study, out on patrol. Corvo felt his eye drawn to that red coat. Why him? Of all the ones Daud had condemned to death and ruin, why was it _Corvo_ who now had to suffer his ghostly presence day in, day out?

He huffed a joyless laugh. He knew why. The trouble was, as he felt more and more stifled in his duties and his presence at Court, the more he relied on that other part of himself, to breathe. It wasn’t freedom, not truly, but it was something, _someone_ , who was not him. Not only him. Standing behind Emily’s throne, his clothes felt too tight on his frame, the air was stifling and there was an itch under his skin. But when he took on his less than royal role, when he put on the mask and became the Masked Assassin, when he traversed rooftops in the dark, it didn’t matter. Some part of him had broken and become something else, with the help of the Void or without, and it was that which drew the darkness to a close inside of him.

Daud had not offered to teach him again.

Corvo had scoffed at it, at Daud’s insinuation that he could not control his powers. If anything, he showed remarkable restraint every single day, by not simply flicking his wrist and sending the entire Council flying across the throne room. For so long, he had let their condescending gazes control his actions. He’d kept his peace, standing at Jessamine’s shoulder as he now did at Emily’s, never let on what he was thinking; let their disdainful remarks roll off his back. He’d never set a toe out of line.

How he regretted it now.

*

One day, Daud appeared next to him as he was bent over a table covered in maps and floor plans.

 _Hackworth is taking bribes from the Hatters_ , he informed Corvo bluntly. Corvo did his best not to turn towards him.

“And how do you know?” he asked, still inspecting the plans to a mansion in the Estate District.

_You’re not the only one I can follow, you know._

“And yet, here you are,” Corvo returned.

_Don’t let it go to your head. You do have to be in the vicinity. There’s a… leash._

The way Daud said it, Corvo supposed he thought Corvo would find the imagery pleasing or, at the very least, deserved.

“Interesting,” was all he said instead.

_Don’t use that word._

Certain enough that Daud could not see _him_ , Corvo smirked.

*

It was only a brief consolation.

That night, Corvo find himself in the Void, the torn cobblestones of the Tower District floating around him.

 _How are you faring, dear Corvo?_ The Outsider appeared across from him.

“You should know. No doubt you’re watching,” Corvo shrugged. “You sent him to me as punishment. At least now you’re entertained.”

The Void god regarded him darkly.

 _Daud’s continued… presence is none of my design_ , he answered.

“It is certainly neither Daud’s, nor mine.”

 _Something binds you together, then_ , the Outsider suggested. _Aren’t you curious as to what it is?_

The question twisted something inside Corvo, and he snarled.

“No more of your games,” he returned. “No more.”

_Oh but Corvo. Things have only just begun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> original dialogue from my notes:  
>  _You’re not the only one I can haunt, you know._ — “And yet, you’re stuck to my ass like a magnet.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Daud, obscenely, enjoyed it. To reduce the unflappable Royal Protector to the beast that curled in his belly, to the rage that he tamed every day. Even when he killed, his movements were precise, controlled. He spilt more blood than Daud had known to, but that was merely practice. Corvo Attano would have made an _excellent_ assassin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The terrible ideas just keep on coming. Me, writing this: Wow, Daud's a _dick_.

Daud watched as Corvo continued to grate against the limitations laid upon him by Emily’s Court and the Empress herself. The girl had become… tempered. She would still suggest a swift execution every now and then, but it seemed her new governess’s influence was catching. Yet, she continued to read heavy tomes about the many mythical beasts and curses of Serkonos, much to that same governess’s despair, and she would ask to hear of Corvo tales of many a successful deliverance of his targets; both during the Loyalist Conspiracy and after.

One she never asked after, however, was Daud. She knew Corvo had dispatched the man who had stilled her mother’s heart, but she longed not to hear how he had found his end. And Corvo, in turn, seemed in no hurry to tell her.

Daud found this curious, even as he understood the reason. Or at least, he thought he might.

*

“I can see you better,” Corvo commented one evening, as he was reading his agents’ field reports and listening to audiographs sent from all quarters of the City Watch.

Daud allowed himself a questioning hum in response, too reluctant to simply tilt his head or cast a glance. It would prove Corvo right, and with the mood the man had been in lately, it was something Daud strived to avoid as much as possible.

“You’re less… distorted,” Corvo explained, waving a careless marked hand. “Less grey.“

Daud felt as though he should apologise for the inconvenience. He swallowed the words. Instead, he said:

_If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are disappointed that a cure for the Plague has been found._

The look Corvo cast him was anything but confirmation.

_Were you enjoying the thought that you might yet tip Dunwall over into ruin if you just piled the bodies high enough?_

“Enough,” Corvo growled, and Daud wondered, truly wondered, that he thought that would work on him.

_And what of Emily? Would you place her throne at the top of that pile, and have her rule over your kingdom of rats?_

“Those are enough questions, ghost,” Corvo threatened — but with what? Censure?

 _Aye, I am your ghost,_ Daud agreed. _But I am not the only one. What do you tell_ her _, when you’ve returned from yet another blood streaked patrol, Watchmen or Hatters or nobles bleeding out in the gutter behind you because a little birdie whispered in your ear that they might betray you?_

“ _You_ warned me about Hackworth. And don’t you dare,“ Corvo had risen now, “use _her_ against me!”

_Who? Jess—_

“Don’t speak her name!” Corvo roared, and sent the contents of his desk flying across the room with one sweep of his arm, as if ready to vault it and attempt to strangle a spectre if just to have some peace.

And Daud, obscenely, enjoyed it. To reduce the unflappable Royal Protector to the beast that curled in his belly, to the rage that he tamed every day. Even when he killed, his movements were precise, controlled. He spilt more blood than Daud had known to, but that was merely practice. Corvo Attano would have made an _excellent_ assassin.

He told him so.

Not a second later, he vanished as a crossbow bolt struck the wooden panelling just behind where his head would have been, had he been, well. Alive.

*

Revenge, of course, followed swiftly — albeit not at Attano’s own hand. It was the Heart who Daud found whispering to the Lord Protector in the quiet of the morning.

 _Your connection grows stronger_.

“We have no connection, beyond the Void,” Attano protested.

 _Let it be his connection to you, then_ , she argued, and then: _His attachment._ Words that might have one day set Daud’s blood to freezing in his veins. He huffed, and promptly scolded himself to keep quiet. He did not like these reminders that he had once been alive and now was not. Whether he had ever been human might be up for debate, but at least he’d not been bloody well _dead_.

“He knows no such thing,” Attano said, firmly convinced. “He knows only guilt. He does not care whether I live or die.”

_The fact that he has insisted to join you on patrols suggests otherwise._

“So he can pester me.” Attano actually had the gall to sound peeved. Daud had half a mind to let him go alone next time, and leave him there in Holger Square to die, if it came to it. And one day, it would. He had only narrowly avoided capture two nights ago, and if Daud had not warned him about Brother… whatever his name was, and his hounds, the beasts foaming at the mouth and thirsty for heretic flesh to rend, he imagined the sun would have risen in the East on Corvo’s broken body and the heretic’s brand carving up his face — repayment for Campbell. The Overseers had been itching for it. Daud was certain that one day soon one of their traps would prove successful; because, and he was also certain of this, they had help.

He did not yet know who, but someone had to be feeding them information if they increased their patrols in the same districts Corvo was investigating just before he received a report or tip-off that led him there. Someone was working with he Overseers, someone from within Corvo’s own network, Daud was sure of it. He could not say whether Attano couldn’t or wouldn’t see it, or whether he was too blinded by the Void to realise. Or perhaps he _had_ drawn the same conclusions, and was working to get to the bottom of it. For all Daud knew, he was behaving increasingly recklessly precisely to draw out the traitor — Attano was not in the habit of sharing his _strategy_ with Daud.

And some days, it was generous to assume that he had one.

As it was, Daud could not confront Corvo with any of this until he knew more: a hunch and unfounded accusations would never work, and he could hardly afford to worsen the Royal Spymaster’s natural paranoia by making him even warier of the ghost hovering at his shoulder as he stalked the shadows of Dunwall’s streets in the night. And even when he had evidence, Attano would hardly take his words at face value. He knew better than that, he’d say.

*

Corvo was in his office with Captain of the Watch Curnow that night, a man Daud had, curiously, never been hired to dispose of — not even by Campbell. Of course, the bodyguard and his travelling companion should have still been at sea that day, but Daud was surprised that even in the six months after, while Corvo was rotting away in Coldridge and Daud was falling prey to his own useless remorse, Campbell had not endeavoured to have Curnow done away with. Apart from his own sad little scheme, of course, that had been so easily interrupted. It said something about Curnow, Daud supposed, that even in the midst of the worst plague in recorded history, after the fall of the Empress and the disappearance of her daughter, the Captain still had done his best to nail Campbell over the death of two of Madame Prudence’s girls, when all the world had already forgotten about them. Daud wondered aimlessly what that might be like, as he did his best approximation of leaning against the bookcase behind Corvo’s desk, to believe in justice enough to do such a thing; to stand up, more or less on your own, to the second most powerful man in the city in those days. With Burrows’ backing and the might of the Abbey of the Everyman behind him, High Overseer Campbell should have been untouchable. To the public, to historians, the Masked Assassin had proved them wrong.

But it had been Curnow, first, who’d laughed in all their faces. And he’d done it without a mask, without a mark on his hand.

He wondered if that was why Corvo liked him so much. Enough to sit with him, over a glass of whiskey, and _talk_.

*

“You were hovering,” Corvo challenged him later. “Curnow won’t arrest me.”

 _Not yet_ , Daud grated. It was nights like these that he resented that ghosts, apparently, did not feel fatigue. Any impression of dragging a hand down his face would be ruined by the fact that he did not feel the least bit tired. Except, perhaps, spiritually. He nearly laughed at his own turn of phrase, but Billie had once warned him of the practice.

He was sufficiently distracted, however, that when Corvo returned, “If he does clap me in irons, you’ll be the first to know,” he could not help the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. He shook his head, feeling safe in the knowledge that Corvo had his back to him; but when he looked up, dark eyes met his. He stilled, and only barely resisted temptation to disappear.

Corvo said nothing and, after another moment, went back to his paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, Daud is jealous. Of _Curnow_. I'm cackling.  
> Also-also, Jess totally has the dirt on him. One of these days, she's gonna DISH.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You realise it’s very likely a trap._  
>  Corvo did not answer.  
>  _Attano._ Daud sighed, and Corvo would not admit to surprise that ghosts could sigh. Much less that he might hear it. _I’ll scout ahead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now this is when things get.... funky

One night, Corvo was following a report on the one of the Hatters’ more outlandish schemes. Smuggling weapons was one thing — smuggling pistols, ammunition, and the like. But when Hatters got it into their heads to steal Music Boxes from the Overseers, he felt dread creep up. It was a familiar feeling these days, ever-present, just as the guilt whenever he watched Emily drift off to sleep at night. Ghosts were perched on his shoulder and occupied the space where his heart had been. Even as he felt her sit _outside_ his chest, he had no doubt that his own was gone, and in its place beat a heart that was no longer his.

The ghost thad had been Daud showed no sign of vanishing — of course not. If Corvo had to see him, just as he did _her_ , if his mind and the Void continued to conspire to play tricks on him… yet, his certainty that they were merely trifles of the mind was waning. It was true, others could not see them, hear them, speak to them; but what Corvo saw when Daud frowned at him, what he felt when he heard Jessamine’s voice call to him from the nothing, it was more than madness. It was _real_. For so long, he had gone along with it because he had surrendered himself to the fracture of his sanity. His equanimity in the face of Daud’s insolence and the Heart’s grief was crumbling; and the thought led him into Drapers Ward with cold, unsettled rage in his veins. Scorn dogged his steps and made his shoulders hunch forward, a hunter stalking his prey. The hood of his cloak was pulled low over his face, but the mask caught the refractions of the lantern lights, breaking them and breaking them until darkness swallowed them up.

 _You realise it’s very likely a trap_.

Corvo did not answer.

 _Attano_. Daud sighed, and Corvo would not admit to surprise that ghosts _could_ sigh. Much less that he might hear it. _I’ll scout ahead_.

Corvo let him go, did not pay him any heed. He had no mind to keep him by his side.

The Hatters’ factory hideout, cleaned up and rebuilt after the Geezer’s demise, was uncharacteristically dark and quiet that night. Still, Corvo would bet that little boys and girls were not yet in bed, as they should be, but rather out and about, making mischief. It was then that he heard something from far away. He cocked his head.

Sounds of fighting — from the direction of the Riverfront. Damn those Eels, and damn that Lizzy Stride. Daud had told him about her — a ruthless captain, a cunning smuggler, and a woman not to be trifled with. The Geezer’s daughter, too, Daud had eventually divulged, perhaps in an attempt to let Corvo have all the information he needed to drive the gangs back. But the truth was: the gangs made his nights harder sometimes, it was true, but in the end they gave him something to do. And besides, Corvo knew better — even if he eradicated the Hatters and the Eels, there would be other gangs coming out of the woodwork ere the dust had settled. These idiots, he could control. As for the Bottle Street Gang… well, they’d kept Granny Rags in check. They’d make sure the rest of the Distillery District remained not too much of a worry as well.

The only concern that remained was the vacuum, in a sense, the Whalers had left behind. Corvo had made inquiries as to the whereabouts of some of their erstwhile members, and kept it from Daud as best he could. He was tired of hissed threats and assurances that he would never find them. He would — if he truly put his mind to it. They had not vanished into thin air; even if that was a circus trick they had been so fond of performing. Corvo had watched them, at Rudshore, leaping off the highest roof and landing on their feet, and sneered at their lightness of foot. The Void had not made him an acrobat, nor a show horse. It had made him a weapon.

Without Daud, or someone like him who might lead a band of mercenaries, there was now something lacking in the intricate power structures of Dunwall’s underbelly. Of course, there were plenty of mercenary gangs who would take the same work he had done; competitors in bidding on the contracts that sent aristocrats down the Wrenhaven in their finery. But none where like them. Touched by the Void. Corvo knew he should be glad. But part of him was always disappointed.

Was that what Daud had been? A worthy adversary?

Corvo shook his head as he approached the docks. He had always relished a challenge. He had _never_ sought for a foe such as Daud and his army of shadows. He explored further, so focused on the sounds of struggle and strife carried on the air from the docks that he saw, noted, but discarded the barrels of gunpowder and crates of explosives that sat in a small shed. They were hardly of any consequence to him.

He made his way towards the Undine, Stride’s ship. What had she gotten herself into now?

 _Attano!_ A voice plucked at his awareness, just on the edge. _Wait!_

What now, Corvo all but growled out loud, and continued, his steps sure and steady. Sometimes he neglected the rush of Blinking across the rooftops in favour of this: pursuing his target on foot, feeling the cracks and cries of the cobblestone beneath his boots. He gazed into the Void and spotted a tripwire up ahead. He clicked his tongue. Foolish. As he came up on it, he sliced through it with Pathmaker, and was set to continue on when—

_CORVO!_

A moment later, the world was set ablaze.

*

Later, when Corvo discarded the tattered remains of his coat and plucked the bonecharms he’d been carrying that night off their leather straps, he wondered whether it was down to the grace of luck or any of their hissing influence that he’d survived — without any grievous injuries, as well. There were some light burns on his hands, mostly on his right palm: he had ripped the mask off as soon as he’d been able to force air back into his lungs, and the metal had been scorching hot.

Now, it sat innocently on top of his desk. He winced as he righted himself and stretched. More than anything, he would feel the impact in the morning; he’d blown clean through wooden walls and a set of doors with the force of the explosion. It should have been impossible. The amount of gunpowder and explosives had been substantial, but most of it would have resulted in fire and smoke. But still, the combustion had knocked him off his feet. Once he had his bearings again, the Hatters had descended upon him, and he’d barely had time to put the mask back on before cutting the first to reach him off at the knees.

 _Corvo_ , the Heart pleaded with him now. _You have to be more cautious. It is not like you to step into an ambush_.

“I underestimated the Hatters’ understanding of basic engineering,” he returned. “It won’t happen again.”

He recalled the voice he had heard, just before everything had erupted.

Daud was silent. He was there, Corvo knew. But he would not speak.

Corvo went to the bathroom to clean up. He returned. Daud was leaning against the wall by the fireplace.

“Say your piece.” It was a challenge. It was a reminder — that to do so would be beyond his rights. ‘Do it anyway,’ the challenge said. ‘See if it makes me find ways to banish you.’

 _I told you to wait._ It was the beginning of his ghost’s grievances, not the end, Corvo sensed it. _You were reckless, and you didn’t wait. You risked everything, risked leaving Emily without a_ father _—_

“Don’t call me that!” Corvo did not understand patience very well. Not anymore.

 _She is your daughter_ , Daud argued. _And you are all she has left._

“Who does she have to thank for that,” Corvo threw back.

Daud clenched his fists, and his Void form advanced on Corvo. _You don’t know everything, Attano. You’re right, I killed one Empress, and I finally understood what no-one ever should. But I saved another. I saved_ her _. I will not let my efforts go to waste because you decide your life does not count anymore. It does. To her. To this city. To—_

“Liar,” Corvo growled. “Liar!”

 _Corvo_ — Jessamine’s voice, calling out to him once more. _Corvo, listen—_

“Get away from me! To the Void with you! To the Void!“ And finally, he let go. He cast Windblast, without thinking, without considering the consequences, he ripped the world from its hinges and threw what power he can muster in Daud’s face.

It worked.

Just for a moment, Corvo was blinded, and when he opened his eyes again, he found his rooms unaltered — except for the lack of a ghostly presence. He was gone.

Daud was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud sat up, rubbed his head, and looked anywhere but the black-eyed bastard’s face. Instead, he looked out across the Void, that desolate and sinking place. As always, his eyes sought the horizon, non-existent as it was, and fixed upon an island far away. He narrowed his gaze, and he thought he could see something shine, in the distance, like ember. It glowed, and flickered, and then it went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, Daud's in the Void again, eh? :')

Daud came to in the Void, with the Outsider hovering beside him.

 _You’ve upset him_.

Daud sat up, rubbed his head, and looked anywhere but the black-eyed bastard’s face. Instead, he looked out across the Void, that desolate and sinking place. As always, his eyes sought the horizon, non-existent as it was, and fixed upon an island far away. He narrowed his gaze, and he thought he could see something shine, in the distance, like ember. It glowed, and flickered, and then it went out.

He felt drained, and lost. During all his time as Corvo’s ghost, he had been in the Void often, drifting. Trespassing. But now it felt as though he should remain her forever, wander the black expanse as one of the spirits of the damned. Corvo had condemned him, as was his right. As he should have done months ago. And Daud knew, without even consciously trying, that he would not be able to leave the Void like this. The connection was barred, and no amount of barrelling against it would see him through. Only, he suspected, Corvo’s permission.

It was as impossible as his forgiveness, then.

 _Sure enough I don’t need to forget my place as his haunting spectre to anger him_ , he returned to the Outsider’s gaze.

 _Give him time_ , the Outsider advised.

 _There’s world enough and time where he is_ , Daud answered. He shrugged. _And I suppose where I am, as well._

* * *

 

It had been months since the last time Corvo had dreamt about the Void — had found himself in it. That night, he almost expected it, to be drawn in by the Outsider, and scolded, or laughed at and mocked, he was uncertain. But nothing happened. He went to sleep, feeling strangely at ease and troubled both, as one did when one was sure one had forgotten to do something but couldn’t remember what, only that something was out of place. Daud was gone, and he stayed gone throughout the night and Corvo didn’t dream of the Void. He woke in the morning, still alone. He could hear the Heart’s gentle rhythm across the room, the insistent ticking of the grand clock, and the crackling of the hearth, silently stoked by a steward before the dawn. The servants didn’t like to come up here, he knew, his reputation less bloody than that of Burrows’ mute executioner, perhaps, but no less intimidating. Some of the maids had known him from before, those who had returned to work here after Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton’s treason and Burrows’ demise; and sometimes he imagined them regarding him with sad eyes. But most of all, there was fear.

Corvo got dressed, alone, and took his breakfast, alone. His movements were precise and methodical, his mind focused not on these menial tasks but on words from the night before.

Daud had claimed to have _saved_ Emily — but from what, he had declined to share.

 _You banished him before he could_ , the Heart reminded him; as though he had spoken out loud. He had not, and he did not like when she plucked his thoughts from the air as though he had; but where anyone else would have garnered fury, she received only a glance steeped in irritation, which, just as she had in life, she ignored. _And now how do you mean to find out?_

“There are ways,” he muttered, emptying his cup of coffee. His side and arm and shoulder ached as he set it down: a souvenir of the night before. There were bruises painted across his ribs so dark they were almost black. He should see Sokolov, but he trusted him less now than he ever had, and he could not afford the rumours, not the morning after the docks had been nearly torn apart by an explosion undoubtedly meant for him. An explosion strong enough to rend him limb from limb, and yet he’d lived. When he’d picked himself up, scrambled to get his feet back under him and flee before the Hatters and the Watch descended, his ears had still been ringing with the force of the blast and a desperate cry of his name.

 _You need him_ , the Heart spoke, unrelenting.  _To know the truth_.

* * *

 

 _Do you want to know what he’s doing?_ the Outsider asked.

 _Spare me_ , Daud returned, and transversed away.

* * *

 

Corvo had decided, in his wisdom, to go through what he had of Daud and the Whalers’ archives, once again. The answer, he suspected, lay in those missing pages, the journal entries excised from Daud’s personal records, and some of his Whalers’. Thomas himself had kept extensive diaries, keeping chronicle of his own steadfast belief in his master and yet his fear of what was coming. At the time, Corvo had thought himself the sole subject of those entries, written shortly after his escape from Coldridge. But he could be certain enough now that was not the case.

Daud had cautioned him not to look for former members of the Whalers: that he would not find them, that they were too smart for him. The name Billie Lurk had seemed a particularly touchy subject, and only the fact that Corvo was busy enough handling Emily and his duties as her Protector and Spymaster had kept him from digging further. There was some part of him that wanted to hold a knife to the throat of the assassin who’d kept him suspended in mid-air whilst her master snuffed out the last light in Corvo’s life and stole the only other person he had left to fight for, while Daud’s ghost was watching, unable to interfere. He had listened to the Knife of Dunwall ask for mercy once. What might it be like to hear him beg?

‘There are ways,’ he’d told the Heart, and there were. He poured his efforts into scouring the shadows of Dunwall’s streets for secrets, for informants, for anyone who’d ever done the Knife a favour — and of those, there were many. There was hardly anyone in this city Daud had not traded with, for coin or for a life spared in the dark. Corvo found an old fisher who’d brought up runes for the Whalers and hidden them by the docks, he found a carver who had made bonecharms for novices, they said, and sold them for a coin and a tip-off that the Overseers were closing in again. He kept looking, kept finding, and eventually, he had a name: Galia Fleet.

A week later, he set out for the Golden Cat. Daud had still not returned, and Corvo did not think to wonder whether it was for lack of trying. Perhaps he was now finally _gone_. Should Corvo know? Should he have felt it?

As it was, these questions brought him nowhere closer to the answers he sought. Daud may have refused to tell him the truth, there was now someone else it could be extracted from. By any means necessary.

He used the key to the Captain’s Chair, which Slackjaw had graciously let him keep, and once he stepped onto the roof, he felt it. The Heart beat faster, and familiar, hissing whispers found his ear. A shrine.

Corvo tilted his head.

* * *

 

 _He’s near the Golden Cat_. The Outsider appeared by Daud’s side. _He wishes to speak to you_.

 _He wishes to see if I’m bound and gagged._ Daud sighed. _How do we talk to him?_

 _Follow me_.

So Daud did, although it felt more as though they were wandering aimlessly than proceeding to any actual destination; but he supposed the Outsider knew what He was doing. Probably. He’d just finished the thought when, a moment later, Corvo suddenly appeared before them, as if simply blinking into the Void.

Daud had seen tricks of the light while he’d been here, bursts of shadow that disappeared as soon as they’d come. Was that what Blink was? To haul oneself through the Void, treading the needle in a split fraction of a second, in one way and right out the other?

Such thought fled his mind, abruptly, when Corvo recognised him — not that Daud could see his eyes behind the mask, but the line of his shoulders changed.

“So you are here,” Corvo drawled. “Hiding.”

Daud declined to defend himself. He had, in the meantime, _tried_ to return. He couldn’t, and each time fury and disappointment had left him more confused than the last. Corvo, however, did not need to know that. Instead, he growled: _Don’t. Touch her._

Corvo evidently did not appreciate not being able to surprise Daud with what he meant to do. Daud had not _watched_ him, as the Outsider had offered, more than once, but if Corvo was going to the Golden Cat, there weren’t that many reasons he might have. His agents usually handled visits to that place. If Corvo took it upon himself, then it was for a cause.

“That’s not up to you.”

_It is if I can just tell you the story myself._

“And yet, if I have her, you’ll be more inclined to tell me nothing but the truth.”

 _I’ve never lied to you, bodyguard_ , Daud grated. _Leave Fleet alone, and come with me._

The Outsider watched them as they made their way further into the Void.

*

They settled on a rock, and Daud told Corvo a story. Of a mad witch, of her coven, of corrupt barristers, slaughterhouse owners, and of aspirations to the throne. He left out only those details that hinted at a certain… investment, on his part.

“So you killed her?”

_I banished her. She’s here, somewhere. Emily is safe from her now._

Corvo scoffed. He had taken off his mask — not for comfort, Daud knew, but for something.

“You of all people should know: she will never be safe. From anyone.”

_Then let me help. At this point, if you want rid of me, there’s going to be some unfinished business for me to attend to. Some way to atone for my sins._

Corvo looked at him strangely for a moment. “Who says it’s not my sins you’re paying for?“

_I have enough of my own, Attano. If you have yours — are you going to make amends?_

“To whom, the dead?” Corvo did not wait for a response as he got up, walking across the island in the Void they’d found themselves on, stopping right at the very edge. He clenched his fist, and his Mark shone bright.

When Daud made no move follow, he turned.

“Coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) Outsider: You've upset him. Daud: NO SHIT.  
> b) High Chaos Corvo is just so... extra. And also scary.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past was nothing but an excuse.
> 
> “I can see you better,” Corvo said then, and Daud held on to what he knew. He had never understood wishful thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud continues to have feelins... Corvo continues to stand in corners and look menacing.

Passing from the Void into the world, Daud felt a change in the static that surrounded him, the charge that some days he felt held him upright, anchored to the ground. He would not give in to fantasies such as _floating_ , as the Outsider did. He was a ghost, neither a god nor a circus trick; he was the shell of a man desperate enough not to go into the Void after his throat had been so graciously cut by the man he’d wronged most in the world. Had he chosen? He could not remember. He thought he might have. And now, that man was standing by the mantle, staring into the dying fire, his mask once more gone and hidden on his belt, and his fists clenched.

Daud knew that the man he imagined Corvo to have been, once, did not exist, if he’d ever existed at all. It was useless to think of him as someone who would hold those he loved through ten thousand nights. In the wild, wailing wind from the Wrenhaven, there was no warm, welcoming heart. There was no home in this man; not for grace and devotion. There was the man he’d destroyed and the one he’d saved. The man Daud _loved_ , desperately unspoken and cruelly unreturned, was a beautiful fiction, and he could feel his heart growing old as he knew the truth: that the one he _wanted_ was the one wearing the mask.

The past was nothing but an excuse.

“I can see you better,” Corvo said then, and Daud held on to what he knew. He had never understood wishful thinking.

 _Please don’t thank me_ , he thought but dared not say. Corvo transcribed everything he did into a little column, marked ‘eternal debt.’ That red in Daud’s ledger was never coming out. And Corvo would never know gratitude for a man such as him. Or, perhaps, for anyone.

Why could the Void not have crushed his heart, Daud wondered. He had no need for it.

The bruises along Corvo’s side belied his certainty.

*

A month later, when Corvo’s bruises had finally healed and he could carry himself to his full, intimidating stature without holding in a wince or a grunt of pain every time he moved — and Daud had heard those grunts and seen those winces, and felt them as his own even as, every time, he’d reminded Corvo of being a stupid, reckless bastard, nearly getting banished _again_ for his trouble and saved only by that expression in Corvo’s eyes that he would never solve and therefore _had_ to abide — they were at a banquet in the Empress’ honour. The Great Hall was filled with nobles and aristocrats from across Dunwall and the Isles, singlehandedly emptying the Crown’s wine cellar and the royal pantry (never mind the dirty look Corvo had given Daud when he’d referred to it as such in the run-up to the occasion).

They were, for the moment, tucked into a corner behind Emily’s chair at the centre of the long table. Daud had just completed a circuit of the room, trying not to gag at the way some of Her Imperial Majesty’s guests were stuffing their faces with pheasant and bloodox as though they were never being fed by their starving servants in their own stately homes, and now returned to Corvo’s side, free to let his nose wrinkle in distaste. He did not ask how the Royal Protector had ever stood to bear these banquets.

“When dinner is over and everyone starts milling about the room, I want you to keep close to Lord Mortimer,” Corvo murmured, wise enough to barely let his lips move, much as hardly anybody was paying attention to him. Of course, all the nobles in the room were _aware_ of Lord Attano, only they chose very deliberately not to honour him with their attention. Old habits died hard, and the worst of all were arrogance and entitlement.

 _What_? Daud returned.

“Do you want something useful to do or not?” Corvo came right to the point — the very Void-damned reason Daud had used to persuade him to let his haunted self _help_ with this unfathomable task of protecting a tiny Empress when all the world was arguably out to get her. With Corvo, coming right to the point never looked or felt like anything but coming right for someone’s throat.

 _Fine_ , he grated. He looked over at the imbeciles Corvo wanted him to keep an ear on. There was nothing in his _orders_ that said he couldn’t have some fun. As if reading his thoughts, Corvo quietly cleared his throat. Daud resolutely did not turn to look at him. Just a little fun, then.

*

He stayed by Corvo’s side until the five-tier meal was done with, all the while trying to ignore how his insides twisted at _remembering_ what it was like to have one’s mouth water over a bowl of bloodox stew. He didn’t like it.

Slowly, he made his way across the hall, occasionally casting glances back to see Corvo speak quietly to Emily, who seemed content to simply curl up in her high-backed chair, marked with the royal insignia, and go to sleep. At length, Daud arrived at the alcove Lord Mortimer and his cronies had manoeuvred themselves into, and dropped an eave to listen.

Five minutes later, he was regretting it immensely — and perhaps also understood why Corvo had sent him instead of prowling the hall on his own. Mortimer was regaling his friends with tales of his mistress: another high-born lady who Daud would have thought to have better taste than to cheat on her own geriatric husband with a man as red-faced and wheezing as that. But then, perhaps her husband knew, and perhaps she was merely the currency in a transaction of a different kind. In fact, that was more likely. After all those years learning the ways of Dunwall’s aristocracy, Daud knew to leave surprise at the door and see degeneracy and greed for what it was.

Still, Daud sent Corvo a look across the room, because he knew he could, and in that moment Corvo looked up to search for him. Daud raised a brow expressing his disgust, and Corvo did not so much as blink. As far as silent conversations went, it was expressive enough.

And he wondered… he had never really attempted this, not even when accompanying Corvo on patrol to mess with the Hatters. But it occurred to him now that he might serve as a distraction — an instrument of fear, he supposed. If only this worked…

He concentrated, and then slowly, deliberately, drew his left hand through the air behind Mortimer’s neck — not touching, merely stirring the air behind him. It was nothing like reaching for the Void had been, but there was something in it that reminded him of those days: reaching for that twine, and plucking it, just once, to see what would happen; only that twine wasn't his connection to the Outsider or the Void anymore, but the strings that connected the waking world with that of the dead.

It gratified him when Mortimer seemed to shudder, when he could see the hair at the back of his neck stand up. Daud grinned a wolfish grin, for the first time since he'd died.

He kept listening, then, as they kept talking. It was nothing terribly interesting or treasonous, and so he went around them in a circle, stirring the air and once even making the candles flicker. And then, something curious happened: they all turned and looked to Corvo — who was still on the other side of the room, next to Emily, looking menacing. To Daud, looking more than anything like he wished he could wear his mask and let his lip curl in disgust.

They were afraid, Daud realised, not of ghosts, but of the spectre of a man sending spells and looks to haunt them. They were frightened: was the Royal Protector using magic to scare them, spy on them? Little did they know, Daud thought and smirked. He wondered if he should knock something off a shelf, just to see if he could — and if one or all of these cowards would flee the room.

*

The evening continued in this vein until it was finally over, and when they were back in Corvo’s quarters, the Royal Protector turned and gestured.

“So?”

Daud decided to let his frustration show by rubbing his brow. _I truly hope you made me listen to all that to blackmail them, not just to punish me. Because if this was just an exercise in how incurably dull death can be…_

“You’re going to do what? Stab me?” Corvo asked with all the cruelty of amusement a man so broken could still muster.

Daud cut him a glance. _I might be tempted_.

Corvo shrugged, and settled down in an armchair by the fire. “Tell me.”

_Tell you what?_

“Everything.”

Daud sighed. _Fine._

*

Hours later, when Corvo had finally turned in for the night and Daud was left to his own devices, he did one last circuit around the room. He’d taken to doing it, in what that had sprung forth from his own habits when he’d been alive. A turn around the room, to look for things out of place, to remember everything in its place, where it should be. All chests and drawers locked, no tripwires he hadn’t installed himself, no-one lurking where they shouldn’t be except for the appointed Whalers on guard.

And now, he checked the perimeter of Attano’s quarters, taking a mental note of what was there, what should be, what shouldn’t be. No corrupted bonecharms left by a thieving servant, no traces of someone going through the drawers. Daud knew well enough that Corvo had long established all these routines themselves, but it helped settle his mind before he let himself fade into the Void for the night. Sometimes, he also wandered the Tower, but always minding the distance he could go, lest he disturb Corvo in his sleep and make him tear through the Tower to hunt him down. He didn’t think such a thing would end well.

He ended his tour of the room at Attano’s bedside, looking down at him.

He could hardly believe that this was true, but he could not help be relieved to be back at his side, could not help be relieved that Attano had survived the explosion at the docks.

Would Attano’s death set him free, he wondered. He felt bound to _him_ , not to this world. Which was no answer, or perhaps it was. He felt more corporeal now than ever, and he found himself asking whether, if he touched Corvo now, Corvo would _feel_ it — before waking in a flash and sending Daud back to the Void, again.

Daud quietly thought it would be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the calm before the storm.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To break a stalemate was to take a side. It was to proclaim not indifference but something like allegiance, or perhaps just ideology. At the very least, discomfort. Dare he say, vulnerability.
> 
> Did Corvo still know these things?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years... my health has been trouble this year, and so updates have been slow. To make up for it, a super long chapter this time!

To break a stalemate was to take a side. It was to proclaim not indifference but something like allegiance, or perhaps just ideology. At the very least, discomfort. Dare he say, vulnerability.

Did Corvo still know these things?

He looked into the mirror and wondered. There was no mask, but his eyes were hooded from lack of sleep, there was a scrape, half scabbed over, on his forehead that he would have to take care to hide with what strands of his fringe insisted upon falling into his face. Today, no mere inconvenience.

It had begun to streak with grey, and although it was still thick and strong, he had at length decided to cut it short, short enough not to need a ribbon anymore; of which only one he had kept. The last gift Jessamine had given him, never worn, because he had left it in his rooms by accident on the day of his journey around the Isles. The last day he had seen her smile.

After the return, he had not thought on it until he had found it in the crate of his belongings that Burrows had had relegated deep into the bowels of the Tower but, somehow, not commanded to be thrown away or, better, burnt. Perhaps they had been waiting to be destroyed after his execution, nearly and affirming, to the ill-fated Lord Regent and his companions, that the danger had passed. He had been foolish, to begin with, to leave him alive for so long; to try and force a confession from his bleeding tongue; to torture him and pretend it did anything but turn his soul to thoughts of vengeance and regret.

They should have killed him, too, the moment the light had left her eyes; to lie and be buried next to her broken heart.

*

Emily was Empress now, twenty-two and headstrong — and unaware of the impasse that filled almost all of Corvo‘s waking moments. To return to the notion of discomfort: the years had passed, his daughter had grown up to take her mother’s place, to head an Empire fraught with blood and sickness still, conflict and struggle, prejudice and violence; and Corvo knew that she had grown past the age of not knowing, sword for sword, how many people he had killed to get them here. She knew the breaths that stuttered when he passed, the trail of blood and tongues cut out he left behind in his wake when he searched her city for those who would seek to threaten her throne. Or even just his equilibrium.

She knew about the Heart. He still had it — had once asked Jessamine, should she not return to the Void, to pass on into oblivion? She had reminded him that the Void would never leave him; nor would she. She was his ghost.

One of them, anyway.

Emily knew nothing of Daud. Corvo had spoken to her about the Heart, in abstract ways. He would not take her to a shrine to use as a conduit; he would lead her to the waiting, gaping maw of the Void, or the Outsider, like a lamb to slaughter. Instead, it was Daud who had offered himself as sacrifice, to open a corridor of perception, of seeing, through the layers of what Emily could see and what she could sense had taken root in her father and in their world, between and around them and in the air of Dunwall.

Daud had not been able to provide her this sight for very long, but it had been enough for her to see, to hear, and to believe.

She had cried.

Corvo had not known how.

Daud had averted his gaze.

*

It had been 12 years and neither of them had broken the truce. Had neither of them interest, or incentive? Had they gotten used to each other? As Daud listened to Corvo read aloud the latest field report from one of his more competent agents, he knew that they had merely accepted each other’s punishment.

If Corvo were any less than who he was, if he were less drenched in steel and lust for it, for the reflection of the moon above the Wren in the blade of his knife, then perhaps he would have looked for a way out. Perhaps for both of them. But such as it was, Corvo carried the burden of his conscience knowing that Daud would never escape the thrall of blood and the memory of her broken body on stone of marble; and that knowledge of the continued torture of his enemy was enough to lead him to relish the noose around his own throat.

And Daud... he knew better than to look for a loophole, forms way out, for a way to unmake reality beyond what he had already dared.

Showing Emily her mother’s Heart... to Corvo, it had been not simply about the truth, but about contingencies. Someone to pick it up if it fell from his hands into the dust. Daud knew Corvo did not expect to live past his fiftieth birthday. There were assassination attempts every year, sometimes more than three. As much as Dunwall blamed their Child Empress for the austerity policies and the continued rationing of whale oil, it was the Royal Protector they feared, and hated enough to want dead.

Emily was neither beloved nor particularly despised — she was Empress, and her people were suffering-Remembering her mother’s lessons, she did her best, but allies and delegates and dignitaries had a way of betraying her as soon as enough coin landed in their laps. And these days, the definition was ‘enough’ seemed ever more increasingly lax.

Corvo was not blind to her dalliance with Wyman, a young diplomat from Morley, and Daud, perhaps through his own faults, was not blind to the way her friend Alexi Mayhew had looked at her even since the two of them were fifteen years old. The day they had nearly died, together, in the Regenter attack, Corvo had been a rabid hound, clawing at the shackles of his own skin. He was no changer as Granny Rags had been, he could not loose the beasts; but he could set the swarm on them. And he had. Daud himself had sensed the danger too late, for time and distance and the bounds placed on him by both. For days after, he had haunted the entire Tower for signs of danger.

Emily had no idea of Alexi’s feelings, and Daud recognised, too, that it was exactly as the young lieutenant wished. He knew the truth in that as well. And the anger, fleeting though it was.

He never asked whether Corvo would reveal all his ghosts to his daughter; all his curses. There was no obligation for truth — when Corvo died, to would Daud fade, if the Void had ay mercy left for either of them. If not for Daud, then for Corvo, knowing that his drudges would not become Emily’s everlasting burdens. Her inheritance were a dead mother’s hopes and, one day, her father’s folding sword. He had called it Pathmaker, and such a name was apt. The path Corvo had cut was far from clean, but it was stark and winding; and the way he had cut out his heart with it nothing short of impressive. Even Daud would admit to that.

*

Neither of them had seen the Outsider in over five years. Daud’s sojourns in the Void were infrequent; and the irritating little shit had not shown his ineffable face in a long, long time. The first time Daud had found himself drifting into the shadows in the night, while Corvo was sleeping, and the Outsider had been nowhere to be seen, he had spared a thought for lucky stars. The second and the third time, he had wondered, and spoken to Corvo. After that, he had dragged Corvo to a shrine. It was cold.

The Void god was not answering them any longer.

They exchanged a glance, and Daud thought of Granny Rags. Corvo’s eyes were hidden behind the mask. But were they angry? Daud dared not ask himself.

Corvo did not take to it well, for a time.

Daud remembered that feeling — impotent, left behind. Hatred was easier to guard one’s heart against than indifference. ‘You cannot love what you cannot trust’ — Daud had read those words, too, once upon a time, and when he heard Corvo mutter that ‘there was a hole in the world,’ it left a bitter tate in his mouth even as he held his tongue.

Corvo would feel no compassion for his own ‘abandonment,’ so it would be foolish to try to draw the parallels between their situations, then or now. Daud did not remind Corvo that he was caught, now, too, between one world and the Void; and no-one to blame — at least to their face.

As strange as it was, he had become used again to the habit of throwing down a gauntlet he knew the Outsider would never bother picking up; and now that he had lost that privilege once more it riled him more than it ought to. He knew as well as Corvo did that the only one he had to blame for his misfortune — and ‘misfortunes’ were very great indeed — was himself. He might curse the Outsider for giving him his powers all he liked, but he was the one who had taken his encouragement, his promises of influence, of power, of importance, to mean that he had to pick up the knife, the weapon and the mantle, in the same breath.

He had become the wold at the door, the sinner and the liar. His Whalers, his heretics, had fulfilled a destiny that, for each of them, began the moment they set foot into the Flooded District, or any of his hide-outs before that. Before the Plague, they had had a proper school, more than a few training dummies assembled among ruins and mouldy debris, bleached and bloated by the river water.

Daud scoffed at himself. Even as he had known that Corvo was coming, even after Brigmore, he had still accepted new recruits, had them taught and tested as though nothing were to change; when he had known oh so well that, at the edge of Corvo’s sword, reality cleaved apart as he carved out his vengeance.

*

And so, they were caught, accomplices in their own complacency: their circumstances went unsaid, and so did their grievances. After ten years of being chained to one another, what was there to say?

At least Daud knew himself well enough to admit that there was selfishness in it, too. That same selfishness that had led him now to waiting for Corvo to return from a meeting with Emily. He was excluded from them, had been for some time. To be clear, ever since he had helped Corvo shoe Emily her mother’s heart. Before that, Corvo had only reluctantly accepted his presence; and only because there was no verbal abuse to hurl at him in his daughter’s presence, much less a convenient and non-violent way of banishing him. The Empress knew well enough that Corvo was bound to the Void, but Corvo did his utmost not to show her how — for fear of finding too much of himself in her? Or too much of her mother. Daud could not say.

The year was 1849, and although it was not as through Daud had any sense of time left to his name, he felt it in his bones — such as they were. The language of the living was not suited to the existential demands of the dead. He’d had long enough to get accustomed to this vital shortcoming.

Daud let himself fade a little, focusing less on being present in this space, or indeed another, as the Void was neither here not there. Corvo would be able to sense him even so.

As he drifted between the shadows, the Void and reality shifting and rearranging like glass plates in a philosopher’s fraction lens, Daud felt something he had not known in a long time. The _pull_ of the Void, the stench in his nostrils and the bite at the back of his throat. A memory of copper on his tongue, fit to turn any man’s stomach.

Something tugged at him, then tore, once, sharp and urgent. Pain. He remembered pain, even if it hadn’t been his to know in a very long time. The last he truly remembered was Corvo’s blade, white hot and with just enough drag of tissue against steel to sink agony into his flesh like teeth.

And now, there it was. Just for a moment.

Then, everything went dark as his sight failed him.

 

* * *

 

 

Corvo returned to his quarters much later than expected — after the meeting with Emily, Captain Ramsey had pulled him aside and shared with him his suspicions that some of the new recruits had ties to the Bottle Street Gang — active ties.

Corvo had grit his teeth not to laugh; and known better than to show his hand — whether Ramsex was sniffing around or whether he had genuine concerns, it would not do to reveal that Corvo knew exactly who they were, and who had taught them how to fight. The Royal Protector’s ‘friendship’ with the Urchin Prince was Bottle Street was no-one else’s business but his own.

“You’ll be happy to continue your secret feud with Ramsey — so secret he doesn’t know about it,” he said without preamble as he stepped around his desk, laying down his papers.

No answer.

He paused, tamping down irritation. He looked around: he felt the Void lingering in the room, in the deepening of the shadows; he could taste it by the cold at the back of his throat, down to the empty cavern in his chest. It was the hole that tethered him to the Void, an open tunnel between them. Was he himself in the Void, or was it his shadow that lived inside it and fed off the scraps of his existence in this world?

With the Outsider leaving them to their own devices, to devour each other or destroy everyone else, they had once again learnt to endure the silence of the shrines, the muted song of bits of bone carved into meaning and magic. (Carving magic into bone did not work.)

Corvo waited. There was no reply, so he went to work.

 

*

The sun was down when Corvo had accomplished what he had set out to do — paperwork, a noble goal — and he looked around again.

Daud was not there.

Daud was always there. Inexpiable.

He refused to sigh, in the event that Daud was merely hiding in the dark, testing his impatience.

If anything, Daud was most likely out, snooping.

Corvo strived not to wonder why he would do so now, past when Corvo was due to return, without a word.

He ignored the whispers at the edge of his mind, sounding too much like whispers form the deep, from the Void, that told him that something was wrong.

He tried not to get used to things — routine and complacencies were what had cost him Jessamine, Emily her childhood, and Dunwall its last hope. Daud, certainly, could not be _relied_ upon. Ten years of Daud giving in to a state of being that filled the gaps of Corvo’s schedule was hardly a show of loyalty; merely of a lack of imagination in a mind stretched beyond its living pale, like an engine coil ground down into dust by force and time. He had settled into Corvo’s punishment — and his own — with ill, feeble grace.

Corvo went to bed and declined to speculate.

*

The next morning, Corvo was alone for hours.

 _He has news_ , the Heart abruptly spoke from her hidden spot inside his vest at noon; and Corvo cut short his meeting with Curnow in the library.

(Curnow was used, now, to Corvo cocking his head as if listening to the wind or the scratching of rats behind the floorboards, as they were likely to be found even here in the Tower. Sometimes Curnow wondered if the spoke to Corvo, too. There were stories, dating back to the Plague, barely eradicated in time. But the rats never had left. There were as many of them as people now.)

Corvo left Curnow and went back to his quarters. Shoving open the door, he found his ghost.

He looked tired, gaunt and drawn.

“Where have you been?”

_Oh, Attano. Didn’t think you cared._

“What happened?”

 

* * *

 

Daud felt foolish, waiting at the door whilst Corvo collected his things; but the truth was he did need only bring himself. Corvo had been talking to Emily and her council half the morning and afternoon to explain, in as rational terms as possible, that a credible threat had been reported from Serkonos that might hit far too close to home if left unattended.

Now, a ship had been called and passage secured for the Royal Protector, who was to go on what was, officially, a visit to the new Duke in his just finished palace in Karnaca. Corvo was leaving instructions for his agents and for Curnow, who would be left in ‘charge’ of Emily — it was, reluctantly, due to Daud's persistence in his distaste for Ramsey. That Corvo had listened to him was a surprise, but perhaps he had simply hoped it would stop Daud’s griping.

 _Would you have granted me clemency_ , Daud asked quietly while Corvo was strapping on his pistol holster and additional pouches for bullets, _had I told you about Delilah that day, in Rudshore?_

“It would have given me pause,” Corvo answered. It was, perhaps, as hopeful an answer as Daud would ever receive from a man for whom peace was a distant dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ominous noises from the Void]


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had Daud still been capable of nightmares, that would have been the most destructive one: to imagine all the Whalers dead, scattered across the Flooded District, felled and fallen where they had stood; for Daud to discover when he woke after being choked unconscious or bitten with a sleep dart. To find all his children dead, only to be spared himself — would it have been greater punishment than this?
> 
> His children… now, in death, he was earnest with himself enough to claim them as his.
> 
> Even the one standing at the helm of this dreadful ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to report that I'm gettin back into the groove... this is two chapters in a DAY! Holy heck, kids. And we're alllllmost done with this story!

The voyage to Karnaca reminded Daud, belatedly, that neither he nor Corvo had left Dunwall in all this time — and that they had never _tested_ whether it might work. Whilst Daud was sure enough that the Void had bound him to Corvo, for all that he snapped back to him like a rubber band whenever he strayed too far ahead, and not the city, for a few terrifying hours, he half expected to be torn back to land the further they moved down the river and then out onto the Ocean.

But nothing happened, aside from Corvo standing by the railing and watching the horizon while Daud wondered how, even in death and Void, he still remembered the tendrils of seasickness wrapping around his throat. He had never liked boats, and Lizzy Stride had been only too happy to reminded him the entire way up to Brigmore; his Whalers dutifully pretending not to hear of their master’s weakness. Not that it had mattered, for barely a month later, the Masked Assassin had come to remind him of his sins, multitudes of them there were, and none of them greater than the unburdening of the Crown. Had had died fearing for Dunwall, and for his Whalers, caught between the grind of the streets and factories and the edge of Corvo’s sword — neither of which Daud would be able to protect them from. Sometimes, he wondered how they had coped with losing the Arcane Bond — but then, Corvo’s research into those that had survived made him nauseous, because it only existed to keep _him_ in check, to frighten him into giving up all his remaining secrets. Corvo could never know that all he had to do was ask — much as Daud doubted he could understand the sentiment anymore even if Daud did confess to him. But that, he could never do.

And so, it was enough to know that Corvo had not killed them all that day; and that some of them were leading decent enough lives with the skills Daud had taught them. He’d perhaps made them more than just killers. Only just.

Had Daud still been capable of nightmares, that would have been the most destructive one: to imagine all the Whalers dead, scattered across the Flooded District, felled and fallen where they had stood; for Daud to discover when he woke after being choked unconscious or bitten with a sleep dart. To find all his children dead, only to be spared himself — would it have been greater punishment than this?

His children… now, in death, he was earnest with himself enough to claim them as his.

Even the one standing at the helm of this dreadful ship.

Finding that the captain of this vessel that had been so underhandedly procured by one of Corvo’s agents was a woman named Meagan Foster, _friend_ of Aramis Stilton, the mine owner from humble beginnings and the old Duke’s lover… death had given Daud far too much time to read gossip rags and spy on more or less unsuspecting noble at Emily’s court, but more than that it had made him forget. She looked different, she spoke differently, her transformation complete the moment she took up her pipe and lit the tobacco inside with the hand they had left her.

Billie.

She’d made it out of Dunwall.

And now, she was grousing at them for fouling up her convalescence that she had intended to spend in Dunwall, to wait until the heat in Karnaca died down. Daud could hardly imagine how she had made the journey up in such a short time, still injured; but then he had always known her stubbornness. He unabashedly studied her wounds, her severed arm and taken eye, and he itched for a throat to close his hands around. Instinctively, he knew Stilton’s disappearance had to have something to do with Delilah’s return — the dates matched; and there was that old feeling in his gut.

Witches.

He urged Corvo to draw the whole story out of her; supplied him with the information he needed to _reassure_ Lurk that Corvo guessing at her true identity was more than a wild stab in the dark. His stomach turned as he did it, and hopelessly, foolishly, he’d barred Corvo’s way out of the cabin Lurk had given them — him — as if he had any notion of keeping him from killing her right then and there if he so chose. He didn’t, for some grace of luck; but Daud held on to no illusion that judgement would yet arrive. At the latest, when they had no more need of her.

“How do you know all this?” she demanded, angry and hurting and cornered.

“Daud was… quite forthcoming, before his end,” Corvo returned coldly and efficiently; and better to imply that Daud had betrayed them all to save his own skin than explain that he was hovering behind her, invisible to anyone’s eye but Corvo’s, watching her and listening.

Foster — Lurk — scoffed.

“I know it was you who killed him.”

“Thomas?” This _was_ a guess, but a good one. Corvo’s investigations had been thorough.

Lurk scowled.

“Still, Daud wouldn’t have told you anything, not even if he thought it might save his neck. Especially not then.”

This show of loyalty, damned misplaced and undeserved, surprised Daud.

It surprised Corvo, too, but he did not miss a beat before answering, “Not his, perhaps. But those of this people.”

Smart.

Now, Billie was snarling. “And did they live?”

“You must know they did.”

She swore under her breath, and it sounded much like, “Daft old man.”

Daud sighed, audible only to Corvo, who paid him no heed.

 

* * *

 

The passage took two weeks, and with every setting sun, Corvo worried more about Emily. She was in good hands, Daud reminded him, and of course she was; but any self-respecting assassin worth their salt would know that their window of opportunity was _now_. Daud’s further cynical reminders that there would be no bad news from Dunwall already waiting for them at port simply because any messenger would have taken longer than they did, only served to make Corvo contemplate whether there were any ways of binding a ghost to a rock at the bottom of the Ocean, rather than his heart.

But he would not be caught in idle musings. It was enough that Daud had practically _begged_ him to spare Foster. They both remembered well Corvo’s threat of finding her and killing her in front of Daud’s useless form. He had not thought of it in a long time; but when Daud confessed he knew who their captain truly was, and when he positioned himself in the doorway of their cabin — Corvo’s cabin — as if he could possibly hope to stop Corvo from going up to the bridge and striking her down before she even knew he was there…

He’d wanted to. Lurk had _been there_. She _deserved_ to die.

It was Daud’s dogged expression, his insistence that they needed her alive to get them into Karnaca, and the Heart speaking up from the inside of his coat that stayed his hand. Jessamine called her ‘angry, but filled with regret.’ She was not the only one on this boat, then.

Perhaps when this was done, he thought, and the Void inside him crowed.

*

Once they had arrived, Corvo had to move quickly. News of his arrival would spread fast — but none of it as fast as his ghost slipping in underneath doors and through cracks in the slab. They started with Aramis Stilton and the Dust District, and first they met with Lucia Pastor and Alexandria Hypatia at Foster’s insistence (Corvo could not call her Lurk, or ‘Billie,’ as Daud did, or the red mist might descend and he would break his reluctant promise). Daud whispered to him that Hypatia looked nothing like herself in the Void — more like a hound, like an animal; and it was only with the help of her assistant Vasco that they found a cure. Corvo dispatched the guards the new Duke had sent to Addermire with ease, and above him Daud breathed all the more heavily. What did blood smell like to him? Could he still taste it? Corvo would not ask.

The advantage of the lockdown was that shift change was half a day away, and so the unfortunate news of Hypatia’s escape would not reach Luca Abele until the next morning.

Luca. That insolent _child_.

Corvo recalled his first (and last) visit to Dunwall, during which his brother Radanis had been killed. They had reminded Corvo so of the Pendleton brothers in temperament and petty rivalry, and in their disregard of decency — not that Corvo himself was patron of the latter. He held little regard for morality in this day and age. Acting honorably had exposed him to dishonour, and the loss of presence had brought him power beyond his comprehension. It had given back his daughter the throne she was due; and he would use these _gifts_ to secure it for her now.

Over Luca’s dead body, if necessary, Corvo vowed, facing the grand statue of Theodanis gracing the square outside Aramis Stilton’s house.

*

What they found inside was unlike anything Corvo could have ever expected. As soon as they had broken open the door (Foster had told them that the Duke had commissioned his Grand Inventor, Kirin Jindosh, to build an unbreakable lock, but it seemed the _maestro_ had not yet finished with his work), Daud’s silhouette began to flicker.

“Daud?”

 _This place is strange_ , Daud rasped, visibly straining to remain tethered to one realm — one timeline, as Corvo would later learn. For a short while, he disappeared again.

Inside, what was waiting for Corvo was dust and the slow start of decay — and Aramis Stilton himself, beyond this world or any other. There was nothing he could do to help him.

Unless…

 _No_ , Daud growled behind him. _We’ll let Billie decide what happens to him. She’s his friend, and she nearly died trying to save him_.

In the end, it was not a choice she got to make.

*

 _Corvo_ , the familiar and yet nearly forgotten voice of the Outsider set Corvo’s teeth on edge. _Do I even have to say it? You’re about to lose another Empress._

“Ten years,” Corvo accused. “Ten years, and this is the first thing you _dare_ to say to me.”

 _I bring gifts_ , the Outsider answered, as a rotating device appeared in the air between them. _Isn’t that enough?_

Corvo snarled at that.

*

When they finally understood what Delilah had done and who had helped her, they had a comprehensive list of targets. They did, somehow, manage to save Aramis Stilton without so much as touching him — Corvo had waited up on the scaffolding while Daud had slipped into the past to discover the truth. Meaning, the combination to Stilton’s study. From above, Corvo had incapacitated the guards and then Stilton himself, on Daud’s urging. He did not understand why they should seek to save the man who had willingly invited this _cabal_ into his home, allowed them entrance to his inner sanctum to call forth a witch from the Void, but Daud was insistent enough for Corvo to believe that it might yet serve a purpose to have Stilton lucid, and in the present.

Later, when they returned to the Wale, and Foster was mysteriously healed and complaining of a terrible headache, he understood Daud’s true motive. He was, after all, still a selfish man. Looking out for his, and his alone.

*

Eliminating all of their targets was a task of several weeks, marked by moving the Dreadful Wale around out in the Bay, so as to avoid suspicion and, inevitably, detection.

Corvo would never forget Jindosh’s mansion, that uncanny, moving house that crushed people like insects between its walls. He had used Daud to scout ahead and still he had nearly lost his path.

Kirin Jindosh, then, had lost his head.

*

Days later, they were on the way towards the Royal Conservatory. Daud had badgered him all day with warnings about Breanna Ashworth, her determination and her cunning; and most of all her devotion to the witch Delilah Copperspoon. He had been so persistent as to occasion Corvo throwing a book at him that he had pocketed in Stilton’s library, and to raise his voice enough for Foster to hear him. She’d asked him later whom he’d been speaking to — she realised, of course, that he was marked by the Outsider still; and he was comfortable in letting her believe that he’d had a visit from the black-eyed bastard.

Now, creeping through Cyria Gardens, Corvo mulled over those warnings. If Ashworth was truly so powerful, why hadn’t she positioned herself at the head of the coven?

But he knew why. It was the same reason why Daud’s lieutenant, Thomas, had not been able to keep the Whalers together after their master’s death. It was not weakness as such — but simply a lack of _interest_ from a certain… third party.

*

Infiltrating the district was going swimmingly — until it wasn’t. There’d been a third Howler involved in that ambush that Corvo had not seen, and as soon as the first flask of Howler Dust exploded against the sandy pavement, he could hear shouting from the main road. Grand Guard. Luca protected his investments well.

 

* * *

 

Daud, who had been sent to the roof by Corvo and foolishly complied, heard glass shattering and guards calling to each other from below; and watched in mild terror as the entire district seemed to converge on Corvo’s position. And _of course_ , the type of man, the type of fighter Corvo was, he did not simply bend the world and time to get away and let the heat die down. He stayed, and squared his shoulders, and _dared_ them to try and draw first blood.

But Corvo had not minded his surroundings well enough — he was in a narrow alley, with stairs leading up towards him and behind him into a dead end by locked gate, which would have been ideal to funnel them all towards his sword in an orderly fashion. But there was also a door to his left, unlocked, which led up into the building, with four soldiers guarding the windmill, and out into the street on the other side. And Corvo realised too late, when two guards and an officer burst through. Already engaging two more at his front and the wall at his back, Corvo was cornered. Normally, Daud wouldn’t have minded that small knock to Corvo’s pride that came with struggling more than he used to against a dozen enemies; but what worried him were the witches making their way over across the rooftops. It was no sure thing they would not be able to see _him_ , and they _would_ be able to attack and seriously injure Corvo without the guards knowing what was happening before it was already over.

And so, Daud made a decision.

Gathering all the influence the Void granted him, and every strand of what, unbeknownst to the man below, bound Daud to Corvo — every single stolen glance, every piece of manifestation he had managed to gain since realising his feelings for him — Daud flung himself down towards Corvo and the guards in one, desperate leap.

A shockwave rolled through the ground like an earthquake, and the soldiers attacking Corvo stumbled backwards: two were flung into the wall, the others fell down the stairs, unconscious.

 _Get out of here_ , Daud panted, still crouched low as he had landed, _there’s witches coming and they_ _cannot_ _be allowed to see you._

Wondrously, Corvo listened to him and Blinked away.

Daud caught his breath, waited, and just as more guards and the witches rounded the corner below, followed.

Up on the now empty roof, Corvo stared at him, then squinted when Daud moved. He supposed he had lost some of his hold again, doing... that.

When Corvo didn’t speak, Daud grunted, _For fuck’s sake don’t thank me_. It was only half a joke, half wishing well.

Corvo seemed to nod, then said, “Wasn’t going to.”

*

Later, back on the Wale, with Breanna Ashworth’s blood staining Corvo’s coat and vest, Daud watched over him as he slept. Stupidly, a ghostly hand reached out to brush away a strand of hair that had fallen into Corvo’s face. It did not work, of course, but Daud let himself believe, just for a moment, and started when Corvo twitched in his sleep as though he had felt a touch.

An equally ghostly voice spoke next to him:

_I see the way you look at him. He will never feel anything but hatred for you. Much as he feels anything, now._

Daud continued to watch Corvo breathe.

 _That’s fine_ , he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daud: asks Corvo to do things  
> Corvo: does them, good things happen for other people  
> Daud:  
> Corvo: YOU'VE TRICKED ME
> 
> ah, the joys of writing High Chaos!Corvo


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I am your ghost, Corvo, not your mind. You still decided to leave when we did. The danger she was in never would have altered._
> 
> “Quiet,” Corvo growled. He would not hear any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is iiiiittttt, the final chapter of this story!!
> 
> I do have something else planned, which is rather the inverse of this: it has been suggested to me to write an AU wherein Low Chaos Corvo accidentally moiders Daud during their duel, and then Daud comes back to haunt him and it's a terrible comedy. ([tweet](https://twitter.com/grumblewhale/status/1160550991021969409))  
> So I'll be doing that! I've also got a bunch more WIPs cooking, so stay tuned. I will also pick up [You Want It Darker](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17072603) again soon, once I've gotten back into the groove of writing after work.
> 
> For now: thank you, everyone, for sticking with this story and yelling about the tragedy of it all. Enjoy xx

There were only two targets left now: the Duke, and Delilah herself. News from Dunwall had reached them in the meantime. There had been an attempt at a City Watch coup, led by none other than Mortimer Ramsey. Corvo had nearly put his fist through the hull and Daud had ground his teeth while Foster read the first message out aloud. In an effort to contain Corvo, to force him to return to Dunwall, or better yet to give himself up to Delilah in Karnaca, the Duke had commanded Ramsey to take Emily hostage. Of course, Corvo thought. Ramsey would have never shown such initiative on his own.

(Daud had been right about the Captain: that rankled even worse.)

A second, longer letter from Emily had arrived shortly thereafter. Alexi and Curnow had nearly died protecting her, and yet Emily had already been halfway to Coldridge when _someone_ had plucked her up from the ground.

 _What should we have done_ , Daud asked him later, when they were in the cabin and feeling miserable for themselves. _Take her with us? We knew the risk in leaving her in Dunwall. We knew there might be spies already in place._

Corvo balled up his fists.

“ _You_ urged me to move as fast as possible. You _knew_ she would be in danger.

_I am your ghost, Corvo, not your mind. You still decided to leave when we did. The danger she was in never would have altered._

“Quiet,” Corvo growled. He would not hear any more.

Curnow and Alexi would both live and fully recover, Emily wrote, and Ramsey had lost his head to her sword the next day. That sword, as it happened, had not been the one Corvo had given her for her eighteenth birthday, or any of her other weapons, stashed in hidden locations across the Tower. In the interest of perhaps not _merely_ expediency, she had used one she had liberated from Corvo’s quarters. A Whaler blade, locked in the last unbroken case, and the one of which she knew where he kept the key.

Daud’s blade.

Corvo was grateful, now, for the extensive training her had given her, and perhaps for a different, greater intervention, but _Daud’s_ sword?

‘Still sharp enough to cleave a man’s head from his shoulders,’ she wrote. ‘He should be pleased when you tell him.’

She wrote, too, that the Outsider and the Void had shown her things, had confirmed suspicions she had held for a long time. That she had gone digging in Corvo’s notes and journals for the truth. Corvo could have sworn that Daud turned even paler than death. She knew. She was _marked_. And the Outsider, since they’d seen him last, had not deigned to say a word. Of course not. So many of the secrets Corvo had kept, that he had intended to take with him to the grave… all for naught, now. And he had left her alone with a city full of Overseers.

He dreaded each interaction with the Abbey here in Karnaca; and in Dunwall, Daud was never present for his meetings with Yul Khulan, for much the same reasons, no matter that he was but a ghost. Corvo had known more than one High Overseer, had known Hume, too, and he’d not been sad when Daud had chased him out of the Flooded District and he had run into a nest of Weepers trying to fight his way out. It had been Corvo’s privilege to dispatch him, blood and pitch running down his face.

But that was beside the point. Emily was alone, and no-one could ever know. They had to hurry.

*

The next night, when news of Emily’s survival and continued control over Dunwall had doubtlessly reached the Palace, Corvo disabled the carriage rails leading to the Duke’s private station. Once a way of reaching across the bay to request an audience with Serkonos’ leader, it was now restricted to the public.

So Corvo repurposed it.

As soon as he reached the outer walls of the sprawling new estate, he unsheathed his sword.

 _It’ll be quicker if we’re quiet_ , Daud murmured by his side.

“You be quiet,” Corvo returned. “I want the witch.”

 _Corvo_.

“This is an island, now. They have nowhere to go.”

A sigh.

_Alright. Where do we start?_

*

They worked their way inwards, mercilessly but still carefully, avoiding the upper two floors, which held Luca’s private chambers, his office — and Delilah’s rooms. It took a while to glean from idle guard chatter that they were on the back terrace: the Duke was painting Delilah.

Foster had warned them of Luca employing a double he had discovered some years ago, somewhere, to confused potential assassins. Daud suggested that he might be of use. Corvo returned that he could have killed Luca a dozen times over if only he had the backbone for it. The double died, painfully, in Delilah’s quarters, where he had been admiring one of her paintings. What a waste.

They searched her belongings, and eventually Corvo found her correspondence from Dunwall — and her diary. What he discovered inside turned his lungs to stone. Delilah was Jessamine’s illegitimate sister. Her _sister_?

“Did you know?” he growled, and for a moment none could discern whether he meant Daud — or the Heart. The whole time in Karnaca, she had kept commentary on their exploits, implored him to spare civilians or asked him whether he recalled the warmth of the sun on his skin the way she remembered the heat of his touch on hers. (Daud had made himself scarce in these moments, as if he knew what she was about to say.)

Daud did not answer, his eyes unfocused as if caught by the past.

“Did you _know_?”

Daud snapped out of it. _No! For Void’s sake, Corvo. I didn’t know, or I would have told you._

“No matter how deep I dug, I was never able to find out the details of her origin. You were the only one who could have discovered it, _you_ were the one to tell me about her at all. How can I trust you?”

Daud had the gall to look _hurt_ ; as if against his better judgement.

 _I was already in the Void, you had cast me out, and I volunteered that information not only to stop you from going after one of mine. I was already giving you everything I had, why stop there? Why withhold that one last detail if I was sure that she would not escape the Void? And I was, Corvo. Had I known, I would have told you_.

Daud’s words were strange. ‘I was already giving you everything I had.’ Corvo could not fathom what to make of it.

“Fine.”

The Outsider had told him once that the terms of his _arrangement_ with Daud had changed the moment he had managed to banish him to the Void, and then had _asked him_ to return. And yet again when Daud had gone with him. Perhaps this was why. And perhaps that was why Corvo believed him, against his own better judgement.

*

It would not matter, when the witch was dead, whether it was true. Emily had not mentioned it in her letter, so it was as likely as not that she knew, or that the traitors had told her but she’d not believed them.

“We have to find her,” Corvo said when he discovered where Luca kept the effigy they had seen in Aramis Stilton’s study. “We have to return her spirit to her, and _then_ we can kill her.”

If Daud noted the use of the word ‘we,’ he made no comment. He had not involved himself in combat since saving Corvo’s life in Cyria Gardens, and Corvo doubted he could, so soon. He had only just returned to being fully visible again. He’d saved Corvo’s life that night, and Corvo still did not understand how. Yes, Daud had always been able to influence, to varying degrees, the world through its connection to the Void, indelible if invisible to anyone not touched by the Outsider. Corvo was certain enough now that it had been him who had saved him from greater harm during the explosion at the docks all those years ago. But what he’d done in Cyria had gone beyond all that. Corvo expected he would not receive an explanation if he asked.

*

“Answer for your crimes, Luca Abele,” Corvo growled, after Delilah’s unconscious body had hit the ground. Luca was cowering before him, trying to crawl away. Delilah had noted in her journals that she had not yet succeeded in forming him from a man child into a mature adult — from the sketches he had attempted, privately, in his study, however, of him and Delilah together, it was clear that Luca had had quiet mature ideas of what their relationship would be like. Corvo sneered. As if she would have ever given herself to him, or to any man. Luca would stew in that impotent resentment for the rest of his life.

All of ten minutes, now, or rather less, by the gurgling of his lungs drowning in blood.

Corvo thought Daud might have protested, but when he looked at him after it was done, there was a strange sort of satisfaction on his ghost’s face.

*

Dragging Delilah into the vault was easy.

 _Rip it open_ , Jessamine whispered. Her voice was drowning in guilt and shame.

Daud nodded. _And then crush her skull_.

That was easy, too.

 

* * *

 

 

They returned to Dunwall on the Dreadful Wale, to visible unrest in the streets, and the air full of uncertainty. Emily was waiting for them, sitting upon her throne, a familiar blade at her side. She had kept it, if perhaps only for the occasion. She looked up at them.

“Did you two have a nice trip?” she asked. The Mark on the back of her hand glowed and she pulled herself through the Void to meet them. “Father. Daud.”

Daud felt very seen in that moment.

“Where is Mother?”

Corvo retrieved the Heart from his coat.

“Do you mind?” Emily said and held out her hand. “You have one ghost too many already.”

Daud felt his own guts wrench in place of Corvo’s as he handed over her mother’s heart.

“Thank you,” she surprised them both.

*

Once they were returned to Corvo’s quarters — half ransacked first by the traitors and then by the Empress herself, Daud let out a deep breath.

Corvo, seemingly for the first time since they had left, relinquished and removed his weapons; and then sank into one of the armchairs before the fire, lit in anticipation of his — their? — arrival.

Daud stood by the fire and did not say anything, unwilling to disturb the peace. Only, when he thought the man had fallen asleep, Corvo did, very quietly, speak.

“Thank you.”

Daud nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /belligerent screaming


End file.
